Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason joins SFCV writer Lev Mamuya for an hour-long conversation on Zoom. Register for the free event here.
Was it a game for you, Oh Myfanwy,
This poet’s golden flame of love?
— “Myfanwy” (Joseph Parry)
Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason has a touch of the poet about him. He has the singing line so characteristic of his instrument, shown off in his recording of Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto and on his latest album, Song. He has both the muscle and the elegiac soulfulness to encompass Dmitri Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1, which he’s playing on tour this autumn. And he can bring together the past and the future, as he’ll do expertly in a Cal Performances recital on Nov. 1, when he plays a Bach cello suite and then introduces recent works written for him by young composers from Wales and England and by Cuban guitar legend Leo Brouwer, whose music itself connects folk and contemporary ideas.
If you want to know what’s on the mind of a Gen Z classical musician, why not ask the poet himself? That’s what SF Classical Voice will do in its upcoming Virtual Greenroom interview with Kanneh-Mason, which streams live on Oct. 5 at noon PT. In conversation with Sphinx Competition-winning cellist and writer Lev Mamuya, Kanneh-Mason will share how he thinks about repertory and genre, his take on his generation’s relationship with classical music, what it’s like growing up in a family full of musical talents, his perspective on our diversifying world, and much more.