Isata Kanneh-Mason

Isata Kanneh-Mason is a postgraduate at the Royal Academy of Music, studying piano with Carole Presland, having been awarded the Gwendolyn Reiche Memorial Scholarship.

Kanneh-Mason was in the Piano Category Final of the BBC Young Musician 2014, winning the Walter Todds Bursary for the most promising musician before the Grand Final. She has won the Royal Academy Iris Dyer Piano Prize four times and won the Mrs. Claude Beddington Prize 2016 for outstanding recital results at the Royal Academy. She is also winner of the Royal Academy Christian Carpenter Recital Prize 2018, the Howard Craxton Chamber Music Prize 2018, and the Wilfred Parry (Brahms) Prize 2018 at the Royal Academy.

Kanneh-Mason held the prestigious Elton John Scholarship for her undergraduate studies at the Royal Academy, performing with Sir Elton John in Los Angeles in 2013. She also held the Elsa and Leonard Cross Scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, Junior Department, studying piano with Patsy Toh. She won two ABRSM Gold Awards at age 10 and 11 for the highest marks in the UK for grades 7 and 8 Piano.

She has performed around the UK and abroad, in concerto appearances, solo recitals, and chamber ensembles, including those at Wigmore Hall; Royal Festival Hall; St. Martin-in-the-Fields; the Duke’s Hall at the Royal Academy; the Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham; Kings Place; and Milton Court, Barbican in London. She has performed in the Portland Piano Series in Oregon, Barbican Sound Unbound Series, Color of Music Festival in South Carolina, Hebden Bridge, and Lincoln Music Festivals in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the Caribbean, the Cayman Islands, Canada, and Switzerland.

Highlights this season include appearances at the Lucerne Festival, Montreux’s September Musical, the Zurich Tonhalle, Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and Saint-Denis Festival in Paris, as well as an extensive US tour, including a performance at Carnegie Hall.

Kanneh-Mason has performed several times on BBC television and radio, including on Radio 3 In Tune, Radio 3 RPS Awards, BBC2 The Proms Extra, Radio 4 Woman's Hour, Al Jazeera TV, BBC World Service, Channel 4, The One Show, the BBC4 documentary: Young, Gifted and Classical, ITV Born To Shine, BBC2 Classroom Heroes, and BBC Young Musician, as well as in a documentary for Sunday Morning by CBS Television (USA).

Kanneh-Mason is grateful to the Nottingham Soroptimist Trust, to Mr. and Mrs. John Bryden, to Frank White, to Awards for Young Musicians, and to Sir Elton John.