Sheku Kanneh-Mason is a British cellist from Nottingham who in 2016 became the first Black musician to win BBC Young Musician of the Year, aged seventeen, performing Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto. His performance at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018 was watched by an estimated two billion people, bringing him to a global audience far beyond the classical world. His 2020 album Elgar, recorded with Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra, made him the first cellist ever to reach the UK Top 10. He records for Decca Classics and trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Kanneh-Mason returned to the stage at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall on 6 September 2026, exactly ten years after his BBC Young Musician victory, with the world premiere of a Triple Concerto by Gwilym Simcock alongside Jess Gillam and Benjamin Goldscheider.
He made his debut with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House, where he performed the Elgar Cello Concerto under the direction of Simone Young.
Kanneh-Mason cancelled his European tour (5 February - 2 March 2026), including a performance at the Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, due to a persistent finger injury.
The cellist cancelled all remaining concerts of 2025 following an injury to a finger of his left hand, for which his doctor advised him to stop playing cello.
His album Shostakovich & Britten was released on Decca Classics, featuring Shostakovich's Second Cello Concerto (with John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London) and cello sonatas by Shostakovich and Britten recorded with his sister Isata Kanneh-Mason.
😴 Nothing scheduled with this artist in the near future.
