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Who are the Kanneh-Masons? All you need to know about the exceptional musical family
22 January 2024, 18:10 | Updated: 8 May 2024, 10:17
The Kanneh-Mason family react to their very first viral video | Classic FM
Sheku Kanneh-Mason stunned an audience of two billion with his royal wedding performance. But his story gets all the more special when you look at his exceptionally talented siblings.
Sheku Kanneh-Mason is a 25-year-old cellist who became a household name in 2018 when he played at the Royal wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
The cellist has gone on to record acclaimed albums for the prestigious Decca label, toured the world and even graced the cover of GQ, all while completing his studies at London’s Royal Academy of Music.
Incredibly, Sheku’s six siblings, the Kanneh-Masons, all share exceptional musical talents. Isata Kanneh-Mason (27) plays the piano, Braimah (25) plays the violin and Konya (22) and Aminata (17) play both violin and piano. Meanwhile, Jeneba (21) and the youngest Kanneh-Mason, Mariatu (13) play both cello and piano to a very high standard.
In 2015, the six eldest all competed on Britain’s Got Talent together, performing Czárdás and sailing through with four Yes’s. They made it to the semi-finals of the show, when they played a musical medley of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and 1812 Overture, Prokofiev’s ‘Montagues and Capulets’, and ‘Rather Be’ by Clean Bandit.
Read more: Kanneh-Mason duo play ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ in London’s oldest surviving church
In December 2019 they all played as a family on stage at the Royal Variety Performance, wowing the then-Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the audience, with Monti’s virtuosic Czárdás.
A year later, the seven siblings recorded their first album as a family. Carnival, recorded at London’s Abbey Road Studios and released in November 2020, features melodies by Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky and Eric Whitacre, alongside the voice of leading actor Olivia Colman reading poems by Michael Morpurgo.
In 2023, the entire Kanneh-Mason family joined Classic FM to present their first-ever radio series as a family, sharing their favourite musical memories, along with the classical music that has inspired them, over a six-week period.
For further proof of their musical pedigree – and the hard work they’ve put in practising and playing – here’s another vision of the thrilling Czárdás, recorded at their home in 2015.
Monti's Czárdás, played by The Kanneh-Masons
Isata Kanneh-Mason
Isata Kanneh-Mason, 26, is the eldest of her siblings. The young pianist signed to Decca and debuted at the top of the UK Official Classical Artist Chart with her album of Clara Schumann’s music, Romance.
A former pupil of the Royal Academy of Music, Isata held the prestigious Sir Elton John Scholarship and later performed with the rock star himself in Los Angeles in 2013. She has also performed on Channel 4, Al Jazeera TV and ITV’s Born To Shine.
In 2019, Isata performed at the Royal Albert Hall for Classic FM Live. Then in 2021, Isata told Classic FM presenter Julian Lloyd Webber about the importance of making music with her siblings during lockdown. “Sheku and I were at home with the family in Nottingham, and we [were reaching] virtual audiences all over the world.”
Read more: ‘You know there are invisible people watching’ – Isata Kanneh-Mason on streamed classical music
Isata Kanneh-Mason performs Clara Schumann’s Scherzo No.2 in C Minor
Braimah Kanneh-Mason
Like his brother Sheku, 25-year-old violinist Braimah studied at the Royal Academy of Music. He is also a member of The Royal Academy Symphony Orchestra and Chineke! Orchestra.
Braimah plays violin with the band Clean Bandit, and has appeared with them on The X Factor and Top of the Pops. He even recorded with them on their No.1 single ‘Rockabye’.
Sheku often plays with his two eldest siblings, Isata and Braimah, in a piano trio (The Kanneh-Mason Trio).
Classic FM Live: John Williams' Schindler's List theme by violinist Braimah Kanneh-Mason
Sheku Kanneh-Mason
In 2016, Sheku won the BBC Young Musician of the Year award, becoming the first Black musician to win the award since its launch in 1978. The young cellist became a household name two years later when an audience of two billion fell in love with his cello-playing at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Sheku has released two albums, Inspiration (2016) and Elgar (2020). With Elgar, he scored a groundbreaking moment for classical and pop music when he became the first cellist in chart history to score a hit in the UK Official Album Chart Top 10.
At the tine, Sheku described the news as “lovely and unexpected”, saying, “I really hope this sparks a wider interest in this amazing genre of music”.
The Sheku phenomenon has since spread far and wide; that same year, it was reported that more young people than ever before had signed up for cello lessons.
At the 2018 BAFTAs ceremony, Sheku performed alongside siblings Isata, Braimah, Konya and Jeneba. For Sheku, this marked the first time any artist had been invited to perform at the ceremony two years in a row, having played a cello arrangement of ‘Hallelujah’ at the 2017 ceremony.
Read more: Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason: ‘Growing up, I didn’t know of many Black classical musicians’
Sheku Kanneh-Mason performs Evening of Roses at the Baftas
Konya Kanneh-Mason
Konya, the fourth eldest Kanneh-Mason, is a pianist, violinist and student at The Royal Academy of Music, where she holds the Gilling Family Scholarship.
Aged 22, Konya has already played to royalty twice, having performed at Marlborough House for the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall in 2017, and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at The Baftas in 2018 (now, the King and Queen Consort, and the Prince and Princess of Wales).
Jeneba Kanneh-Mason
Younger sister Jeneba, 21, is a student at The Royal College of Music, where she holds the Victoria Robey Scholarship and studies piano with Vanessa Latarche.
Aged nine, Jeneba gained Grade 8 Distinction on the piano and won the Nellie Greenhill Memorial Prize from the Associated Board for the highest marks in the Nottingham area. She also has Grade 8 Distinction on the cello.
A gifted young pianist, Jeneba has performed Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Ravel’s Piano Concerto, Saint-Saëns’ Concerto No. 2 and Florence Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement with Chineke! Orchestra at both The Royal Festival Hall and The Royal Albert Hall.
Jeneba was one of five young performers at Classic FM’s Rising Stars with Julian Lloyd Webber, a programme broadcast on Sky Arts in celebration of a new generation of exceptional classical talent. Watch her brilliant performance of Liszt’s fiendish Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 below.
Jeneba Kanneh-Mason plays blistering Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 | Classic FM
Aminata Kanneh-Mason
Aminata Kanneh-Mason, 17, is a pupil at Trinity Catholic School in Nottingham and currently studies violin with Joshua Fisher. She previously attended The Primary and Junior Royal Academy of Music, and gained Grade 8 Distinction on the violin and Grade 8 Distinction on the piano aged 11 and 12.
She also has singing and acting lessons, and has performed with the Kanneh-Masons to royalty and throughout the UK.
Mariatu Kanneh-Mason
13-year-old Mariatu, the youngest Kanneh-Mason, also attends Trinity Catholic School in Nottingham. She has Grade 8 Distinction on the cello, which she studies with Ben Davies at the Primary Royal Academy of Music alongside piano teacher, Fiona Harris. Mariatu also has Grade 8 Distinction on the piano, and is working towards her piano diploma.
Mariatu performed with the Kanneh-Masons for the then-Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall in March 2017, and has upcoming concert tours with the Kanneh-Masons in the UK, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, New Zealand and the US.
Where do the Kanneh-Masons live?
The Kanneh-Mason family is based in Nottingham, in the Midlands (UK). As children, they would travel down to London at the weekend to attend music lessons and rehearsals at the Junior Department of the Royal Academy of Music.
Who are the Kanneh-Masons’ parents?
The brilliant Kanneh-Mason siblings were raised by parents Stuart Mason, a business manager, and Dr Kadiatu Kanneh, a former university lecturer.
Both parents played musical instruments in their childhood, but never pursued music professionally. Born in Sierra Leone, Kadiatu used to lecture in literature at the University of Birmingham, while Stuart – whose family is from Antigua – works for Belmond, a luxury hotel chain.
In 2020, Kadiatu penned an award-winning book House of Music: Raising the Kanneh-Masons, conveying her experience of bringing up a musical family in Britain.
After Sheku won BBC Young Musician of the Year, his mother told the Financial Times she had always been determined “never to remark on the lack of black people in classical music to our children”.
Read more: Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason: ‘Black boys in state schools are not expected to pick up an instrument’
