“On Sunday night, for the first time ever, a black, 17-year-old public-school pupil from Nottingham won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, following an ‘electric’ rendition of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1,” writes Lexi Finnigan in Tuesday’s (5/16) Daily Telegraph (London). “Performing in front of a huge live audience at the Barbican, in central London, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who is one of seven brothers and sisters, [won ahead of] a French horn player and a saxophonist to claim the prestigious prize. … The teenager, who lives with his family in Nottingham, started playing the cello at age six and achieved Grade 8 examination by the age of nine years old, when he got the highest marks in the UK. He now holds a junior scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music and also plays in the Chineke! Orchestra and the JRAM Symphony Orchestra. … last year, Sheku and five of the Kanneh-Mason siblings took to the stage in the semi-finals of Britain’s Got Talent, impressing the judges with a classical music piece on the piano, cello, and violin. … The 2016 BBC Young Musician Finalists also included French horn player Ben Goldscheider and saxophonist Jess Gillam.”
Posted May 18, 2016
