Sheku Kanneh-Mason

The 2025/26 season was one of the most significant in the career of the British cellist SHEKU KANNEH-MASON. He was appointed Artist-in-Residence of the New York Philharmonic, toured with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and appeared as a soloist with leading international ensembles including the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Auckland Philharmonia, and the Baltimore, Vienna and Sydney symphony orchestras.

A highlight of the season was a performance of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, in which the cellist appeared alongside his sister, pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason, violinist Tai Murray and the Chineke! Orchestra as part of a European tour. Kanneh-Mason also performed the same concerto with Isata and their brother Braimah Kanneh-Mason, violinist, on a North American tour taking in Detroit, Ottawa, Naples, Florida, and Seattle.

Sheku Kanneh-Mason is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he studied with Hannah Roberts. He won the BBC Young Musician competition in 2016, and his performance at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at Windsor Castle in 2018 brought him worldwide recognition. In 2020, he was appointed a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the New Year Honours. In May 2022, he was appointed the Royal Academy of Music’s first Menuhin Visiting Professor of Performance Mentoring. In 2024, he became a patron of Music Masters.

Last season, he gave the world premiere of Edmund Finis’s Violoncello Concerto, commissioned especially for Kaneh-Mason and performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, featuring Roberto González Monjas. The same concerto was performed with the Dresden Philharmonic, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Last season, he gave the world premiere of Edmund Finnis’s Viloncello Concerto, written especially for Kanneh-Mason, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Roberto González-Monjas. Further performances of the same concerto followed with the Dresden Philharmonic, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Together with Isata Kanneh-Mason, the cellist undertook a European tour of duo recitals in Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, Geneva, Turin, Amsterdam and at Wigmore Hall in London. The North American leg of the tour included Boston, Washington, Cleveland and New York. He also gave concerts in Antigua, where he serves as an ambassador for the Antigua and Barbuda Youth Symphony Orchestra.

He is an artist with Decca Classics, and in May 2025 released the album Shostakovich & Britten, featuring Shostakovich’s Viloncello Concerto No. 2, performed with John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London, as well as the cello sonatas by Shostakovich and Britten, recorded with Isata Kanneh-Mason. In September 2025, the Kanneh-Mason family’s second album, River of Music, was released. His 2022 album Song features lyrical music in a wide range of arrangements and collaborations. His 2020 album Elgar reached No. 8 in the overall Official UK Albums Chart, making him the first cellist ever to reach the UK Top 10. Sheet-music collections featuring his performance repertoire, as well as his own arrangements and compositions, are published by Faber. Sheku Kanneh-Mason sees his profession as a mission to make music accessible to everyone – whether in a school hall, an underground club or one of the world’s leading concert venues.

Kanneh-Mason plays a Matteo Goffriller cello dating from 1700, which is on indefinite loan to him.