The Kanneh-Mason Family Takeover, Sundays 9pm-10pm
Join the Kanneh-Masons on Sundays at 9pm as they present their debut radio series on Classic FM, in what is likely to be the first ever time an entire family has been signed by a radio station anywhere on the planet.
All nine members of the family will present across the six episodes, where they feature the classical music that has inspired them and that they hope will inspire others.
Along the way, they share stand-out memories of performing at iconic concert venues as well as stories of life as the world’s most famous classical music family.
The first episode, hosted by Isata Kanneh-Mason, will be broadcast on Sunday 26 February at 9pm.
This week is the turn of Konya and Jeneba Kanneh-Mason – who both play the piano. So Jeneba shares some of the pianists who have influenced her including Samantha Ege, a pioneering British musician who has recently released the debut recording of Florence Price’s Fantasie Nègre No.1, and Clara Schumann who, aside from being a composer in her own right, also toured Europe’s finest concert halls as a soloist.
Konya chooses some nostalgic music from her childhood, including Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.23 performed by Mitsuko Uchida, which she used to listen to every night before bed, and Alexandre Desplat’s score to a family favourite film, Little Women.
Sunday 2 April
Tonight’s episode, the series finale, is hosted by dad, Stuart, and Mariatu, the youngest of the seven Kanneh-Mason siblings. Together, they share the music most special to them.
Mariatu selects her favourite of older brother Sheku’s recordings—Elgar’s Cello Concerto—music from her favourite anime series, Attack on Titan, by Hiroyuku Sawano, and a piece to reflect Mariatu and Stuart’s shared love of chess: Carlos Rafael Rivera’s score to The Queen’s Gambit.