Pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason is already captivating audiences with her “maturity in performance and interpretation” (Fraser). She recently made her BBC Proms debut performing the Florence Price Concerto and was heralded by the press as “demonstrating musical insight, technical acuity, and an engaging performing persona” (Music OMH). The piece was recorded with Chineke! and Leslie Suganandarajah, and released on Decca Classics in summer 2023. The Guardian hailed her performance, stating that ‘Price could have no more persuasive an advocate’.
Jeneba was a Keyboard Category Finalist in BBC Young Musician 2018, winner of the Murs du Son Prize at the Lagny-Sur-Marne International Piano Competition in France, 2014, and The Nottingham Young Musician 2013. She was also winner of the Iris Dyer Piano Prize at The Royal Academy of Music, Junior Academy, where she studied with Patsy Toh.
Jeneba was named one of Classic FM’s ‘Rising Stars’ and appeared on Julian Lloyd Webber’s radio series in 2021. She has also been featured on several television and radio programmes, including Radio 3, In Tune, The BAFTAs, The Royal Variety Performance, the documentary for BBC4, Young, Gifted and Classical, and the Imagine documentary for BBC1, This House is Full of Music. She has recorded for the album, ‘Carnival’, with Decca Classics.
To find out more, see The Kanneh-Masons and IMG Artists
Photo credit: John Davis
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A Rising Star at Skipton Music
Skipton Music’s 2024-25 season got off to a flying start with a deeply enjoyable concert from pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, the latest ‘rising star’ of this extraordinarily talented family.
Jeneba’s technical fluency is breathtaking, but what impressed most in this recital was her deep musicality and sensitivity in the more lyrical passages. The beautifully balanced programme showed off to perfection these two sides of her musicianship: thus in the opening two sonatas by Scarlatti the brilliant and quirky sonata in D major was paired with a more reflective piece in F minor.
Later in the programme, two of Chopin’s introspective nocturnes were followed by an early sonata by Scriabin – a discovery to many of us, who perhaps only know his later and more mystical music; and the wartime sonata no 7 by Prokofiev, in turn disturbing, lyrical and exultant, brought the concert to a most satisfying end. But perhaps the most impressive of all was Jeneba’s playing of Chopin’s sonata in B minor, a notoriously difficult piece which she delivered with consummate ease and musicality.
And this young pianist has only just completed her undergraduate studies! We will surely hear more, much more, of her in the future.
Charles Dobson