Hill Auditorium
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cello
Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano
Season tickets on sale 5/1 for general public.
Siblings Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Isata Kanneh-Mason bring their extraordinary musical chemistry to a program that bridges Romantic lyricism and 20th-century innovation.
Opening the program is Felix Mendelssohn’s first cello sonata, a work of luminous interplay that reveals both the cello’s expressive depth and the piano’s crystalline brilliance. Then, Nadia Boulanger’s striking miniatures demonstrate the full range of the cello’s capabilities, as do Robert Schumann’s folk-inspired short compositions. The program concludes with the trailblazing composer Rebecca Clarke, whose rich, expressive Viola Sonata is presented here in its cello arrangement. Written in 1919 for a competition, the work tied for first place with a sonata by Ernest Bloch and is admired for its sweeping lyricism, harmonic richness, technical brilliance, and sheer expressive power.
PROGRAM (Sat 3/21/2026: Hill Auditorium)
Felix Mendelssohn Cello Sonata No. 1 in B-flat Major, Op. 45
Nadia Boulanger Three Pieces for Cello and Piano
Robert Schumann Five Pieces in Folk Style, Op. 102
Rebecca Clarke Sonata for Viola (or Violoncello) and Piano
Thank You to Our Sponsors
PERMANENTLY ENDOWED SUPPORT
- Darragh H. and Robert O. Weisman Memorial Endowment Fund
Buy Tickets
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cello
Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano
Hill Auditorium
Renewals start 4/22 for current subscribers.
Season tickets on sale 5/1 for general public.
CHOOSE A PERFORMANCE:
Or call the ticket office at 734-764-2538
* Student, Senior and Group Discounts may be available
Sheku Kanneh-Mason is already in great demand from major orchestras and concert halls worldwide. He became a household name in 2018 after performing at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at Windsor Castle, his performance having been greeted with universal excitement after being watched by nearly two billion people globally. Sheku initially garnered renown as the winner of the 2016 BBC Young Musician competition, the first Black musician to take the title. He has released two chart-topping albums on the Decca Classics label, Inspiration in 2018 and Elgar in 2020. The latter reached No. 8 in the overall UK Official Album Chart, making Sheku the first cellist in history to reach the UK Top 10.
Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason is in great demand internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. She offers eclectic and interesting repertoire with 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.
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 by 2021’s Summertime, featuring 20th-century American repertoire including a world premiere recording of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Impromptu in B minor and 2023’s endearingly titled album Childhood Tales is a tour-de-force showcase of music inspired by a nostalgia for youth. 2021 also saw the release of Isata’s first duo album, Muse, with her brother Sheku Kanneh-Mason, demonstrating the siblings’ musical empathy and rapport borne from years of playing and performing together.
Isata was an ECHO Rising Star in 21/22 performing in many of Europe’s finest halls and she is also the recipient of the coveted Leonard Bernstein Award, an Opus Klassik award for best young artist and is one of the Konzerthaus Dortmund’s Junge Wilde artists.
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