Isata Kanneh-Mason

Solo piano

Sunday Concert

October 15, 2023, 4-5:30 PM

Program

Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809)
Piano Sonata No. 60 in C major, Hob. XVI/50

Fanny Mendelssohn (1805 - 1847)
Easter Sonata

Intermission

Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856)
Kinderszenen

Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849)
Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58

The 2023/24 season opens with the Phillips debut of internationally renowned pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason. As the eldest member of the prodigiously talented Kanneh-Mason family, Isata has blazed a trail as a renowned concerto soloist and chamber musician, often in collaboration with her siblings (who are all musicians). Kanneh-Mason has recorded three solo albums for Decca, including Childhood Tales, released in May 2023.

Robert Schumann’s iconic Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood) anchors Kanneh-Mason’s inventive album of reflections on childhood and is featured in her Phillips program, which also includes a late-keyboard sonata by Joseph Haydn (No. 60 in C major, Hob. XVI/50) and Frédéric Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58. Continuing Kanneh-Mason’s immersion into the music of women composers overshadowed by history, she performs Fanny Mendelssohn’s Easter Sonata, a work that was lost for 150 years and then mistakenly attributed to her brother Felix Mendelssohn.

This performance is made possible by generous underwriting support from Martha R. Johnston and Robert T. Coonrod.

This event will be broadcast live from the Music Room on Sunday, October 15 at 4 PM. To reserve a ticket, follow the link above to register. All registered ticket holders will receive a link directing them to a livestream webpage where the performance can be accessed. Ticket holders will be able to watch this performance “On Demand” for 48 hours following the broadcast time.

Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason is in great demand internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. She offers eclectic and interesting repertoire, with her recital programmes encompassing music from Haydn and Mozart, via Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, Chopin and Brahms, to Gershwin and beyond. In concerto, she is equally at home in Felix Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, whose piano concerto featured on Isata’s chart-topping debut recording, as in Prokofiev and Dohnányi.

In 2022/23 Isata steps into her role as Artist in Residence with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, performing three concerti across the season at London’s Cadogan Hall. She returns to Dortmund’s Konzerthaus as one of their Junge Wilde artists and makes multiple visits to both the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Other highlights of the season include recital performances at the Barbican, Queen Elizabeth, and Wigmore halls in London, the Philharmonie Berlin, National Concert Hall Dublin, Perth Concert Hall, Prinzregententheater Munich, and the Sala São Paulo. As concerto soloist, Isata appears with the Orchestra of Opera North, New World Symphony Miami, City of Birmingham Symphony, Duisburg Philharmonic, Barcelona Symphony, Geneva Chamber Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, and Orchestra of Norwegian Opera. She returns to the Baltimore Symphony and recently made her long-awaited debut with the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.

Isata is a Decca Classics recording artist. Her 2019 album, “Romance – the Piano Music of Clara Schumann”, entered the UK classical charts at No. 1, Gramophone magazine extolling the recording as “one of the most charming and engaging debuts”. This was followed in 2021 by “Summertime”, an album of 20th-century American repertoire featuring Samuel Barber’s Piano Sonata and a world premiere recording of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Impromptu in B minor. In November 2021, along with her cellist brother, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Isata released her first duo album entitled “Muse”, beautifully demonstrating the siblings’ musicality and refined skill borne from years of playing and performing together.

She was an ECHO Rising Star in 21/22, performing in many of Europe’s finest halls and is also the recipient of the coveted Leonard Bernstein Award and an Opus Klassik award for best young artist.