Event is Live
Carnegie Hall Presents

Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Cello
Isata Kanneh-Mason, Piano

Sunday, December 15, 2024 2 PM Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason by James Hole / Decca
Two of the classical music world's biggest rising stars, Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Isata Kanneh-Mason, perform for the first time together in Carnegie Hall’s grandest concert hall: Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage. In this afternoon performance, they showcase their remarkable artistic rapport in a program of cello sonatas by Felix Mendelssohn, Fauré, and Poulenc, as well as a new work by Natalie Klouda. The siblings’ 2022 sold-out duo concert of sonatas in Zankel Hall was praised for its “sense of togetherness, of shared sensibility [that] permeated the whole concert” (The New York Times). “This truly felt like a concert of duets.” Performed at their best, these pieces are true collaborative showcases.

Performers

Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Cello
Isata Kanneh-Mason, Piano

Program

FELIX MENDELSSOHN Cello Sonata No. 1

FAURÉ Cello Sonata No. 1

NATALIE KLOUDA Tor Mordôn (NY Premiere)

POULENC Cello Sonata


Encore:

HOLST "In the Bleak Midwinter" (arr. for cello and piano by Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Isata Kanneh Mason)

Event Duration

The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission. 

At a Glance

FELIX MENDELSSOHN  Cello Sonata No. 1 in B-flat Major, Op. 45

Felix Mendelssohn wrote his First Cello Sonata in 1838 for his brother Paul, an amateur cellist. The brothers maintained a close friendship and correspondence, and this piece is a testament to that relationship. It is by turns joyous and poignant, and it owes considerable debts to the cello sonatas of Beethoven, whom Mendelssohn greatly admired.

 

FAURÉ  Cello Sonata No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 109

Gabriel Fauré wrote his unsettling First Cello Sonata close to the end of his life, while World War I was ravaging Europe. He dedicated it to the cellist and conductor Louis Hasselmans, the brother of his partner Marguerite Hasselmans. It is an excellent example of Fauré’s late style, which combines the lush harmonies and melodies of late-Romantic French music with a fragmented and almost modernist approach to rhythm and structure.

 

NATALIE KLOUDA  Tor Mordôn

In Tor Mordôn, which translates from ancient Brythonic languages as “sea mount of light,” Natalie Klouda draws on Welsh and Antiguan myth. Over the course of two contrasting movements, one contemplative and one dramatic, she evokes the heritage of piano-cello duo Isata and Sheku Kanneh-Mason, for whom the piece was written.

 

POULENC  Cello Sonata, FP 143

Francis Poulenc’s Cello Sonata is a rare solo work for strings by this composer. He completed it in the 1940s for the formidable French cellist Pierre Fournier, whose brilliant technique allowed Poulenc to write one of the most challenging and inventive pieces in the cello repertoire.

 

Bios

Sheku Kanneh-Mason

Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s mission is to make music accessible to all, whether he’s performing for schoolchildren, in an underground club, or at the world’s leading ...

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Isata Kanneh-Mason

Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason offers eclectic and interesting recital programs with repertoire that encompasses Haydn, Mozart, Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Chopin, Brahms, Gershwin, and ...

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