Decca have signed Sheku Kanneh-Mason, 17, winner of BBC Young Musician 2016 (you read it here first).
Part of the deal is that the Nottingham bus he catches to lessons gets decked out in his livery.
Official stuff below the video.
Decca Classics announces the signing of extraordinary 17-year-old cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, winner of BBC Young Musician 2016. This major new record deal will provide long-term support to the vibrant young classical star as he embarks on the next stage in his studies and help nurture his flourishing musical career.
A local hero in Nottingham, Sheku signed his record contract on board his very own bus! The City Council named it after him following his BBC Young Musician triumph and the route includes a stop for his school, Trinity Comprehensive.
To kick start Sheku’s new partnership with Decca Classics, he will record Shostakovich Cello Concerto No.1 – the piece which saw him become the first black winner of BBC Young Musician in the competition’s 38-year history, in a performance which was described by judges as“electrifying, sincere and moving”.
Sheku is delighted to be taking his musical career to the next level: “It is a great honour for me to be joining the Decca Classics family and following in the footsteps of great artists like Mstislav Rostropovich, my musical hero. I’m excited to take the next step on my journey and look forward to bringing my passion for classical music to a wider audience.”
Dr. Alexander Buhr, Managing Director of Decca Classics, comments: “Sheku is an astonishingly gifted young musician with incredible energy and a burning passion for his music. We are thrilled to be partnering with Sheku to help foster his remarkable talent through ongoing support for his musical studies and opportunities to record with leading artists. I can’t wait to see him grow and develop in the coming years and we will be by his side every step of the way.”
Sheku comes from an incredible musical family in which all six of his siblings (he is the third child of seven) play instruments to a phenomenally high standard – yet neither parents are musicians. Simon Cowell called them “the most talented family in the world” during a performance on TV’s Britain’s Got Talent. Every spare penny goes into the children’s musical education, from lessons, buying sheet music and instruments, to re-hairing bows and re-tuning pianos. Sheku and his family will be featured in a BBC Four documentary ‘Young, Gifted And Classical: The Making Of A Maestro’, airing on 20th November at 8pm.
Every Saturday, Sheku wakes up at the crack of dawn in order to catch the train to London to attend the Royal Academy of Music’s Junior Programme where he studies with Ben Davies. He uses the journey to catch up with his A-Level homework. However Sheku still finds time for his other hobbies – he enjoys football, table tennis and listens to a wide range of music from Bob Marley to Mozart and Mahler.
Sheku began to play the cello at the age of six, after attending a concert in Nottingham. By the time he was nine, he had achieved Grade 8 and earned the top marks in the country. Since then he has won numerous awards, including the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Instrumentalist Prize.
Sheku regularly performs with Chineke!, Europe’s first BME (black and minority ethnic) orchestra, and has appeared as a concerto soloist with them at the Royal Festival Hall. “It was one of the highlights of my life,” he says. “I would love to inspire more diversity in young people taking up classical music – it would be a really wonderful thing if I could be a role model in that way.”
Sheku is also passionate about building better opportunities for young people of any background to learn music at school and is the Junior Ambassador for music education charity London Music Masters. “You might never want to go on to become a musician, but it’s still so important. I’d love to help bring more music to schools.”
Sheku will make his first Decca recording next year, but before then this sensational young cellist can be found playing in concerts halls around the UK and further afield – with many solo and concerto performances lined up which are sure to mesmerise and enthrall.
‘I had a test drive in a Benetton F1 car,’ says Grigolo, 39. ‘I was driving in Formula 3000 at the time and had the same manager as [Giancarlo] Fisichella, who, of course, became an F1 driver. But then I had an accident during qualifying for one of the races. I messed up two ribs. We had to postpone a concert. I had to make a choice between driving and singing….
‘I did miss the smell of tyres, my race suit, everything. I always, since I was a little kid, was fascinated with speed; anything that could make us move faster from A to B. Whatever it was: a bike, skateboard, roller skates, anything that can make you feel the air around your shape and feel that gravity is somehow less. That feeling was incredible.
‘I feel that I had something to say in that world of motor racing. Who knows, maybe in the next life. This time is the singing.’
More than 100 members of the Palace Theatre Philharmonia and Chorus in Plymouth have resigned after their music director Marcus Alleyne left his job three weeks ago, apparently under local authority pressure.
In all, 123 singers and players from all over Devon and Cornwall have told Plymouth they won’t perform again.
It sounds like one of those artist-bureaucrat conflicts. If you know more, please drop a comment below.
It is reported that Zafar Ansari, 24, is a classically-trained pianist who plays ‘to concert standard’.
He is also a capable cellist.
His captain, Alistair Cook, is a former boy chorister as St Paul’s.
Can any other sport match cricket for first-class musical credentials?
The pianist Soheil Nasseri has been given 13 days to leave his apartment after noise complaints from neighbours.
He has a recital coming up next week in the Philharmonie. Can anyone offer him accommodation?
Please help.
Soheil says:
I will still be playing my solo concert next Wednesday in the Berlin Philharmonie, even if I am homeless! How can anyone be expected to move out within 13 days?
Here’s a translated report from Bild:
NEIGHBOUR TROUBLE FOR PIANO STAR! Soheil Nasseri has been ordered to vacate his apartment due to piano playing.
Photo caption: Pianist Soheil Nasseri (37) has played in Carnegie Hall and performs next week a solo recital in the Berlin Philharmonie (Gershwin, Schubert, Beethoven). He has trouble at home.
Prenzlauer Berg – Some pay money to hear Soheil Nasseri (37) play the piano. But to his neighbour, classical music is just noise.
Schönhauser Allee, the Kulturbrauerei corner. Soheil Nasseri lives off the second courtyard, in a 700-Euro-per-month 850 square foot apartment. The American pianist is a star who performs time and again in the Philharmonie. He moved to Berlin in 2007. Mr. Nasseri says “Berlin is the cultural capital of the world. Berliners love classical music.”
Apparently not his neighbor, though…
She complained about the piano playing and the landlord GWD reacted by sending Mr. Nasseri a notice of eviction – for “repeated disturbance of the peace via your multi-hour music making.”
The complaining neighbor asked to remain anonymous but told us “I work at home. I do feel sorry for him but a piano is unacceptable!”
Mr. Nasseri can’t believe it, but doesn’t want to leave: “My neighbors all have my cell number and I ask regularly if I am disturbing them.” He insulated the walls with thick curtains and the floor with a heavy rug. “And 93% of the time I practice in a church. I only practice occasionally at home.”
Other neighbors are on his side. Martina Keyser (59): “Many neighbors are loud – in contrast, Mr. Nasseri is very considerate. He keeps the windows shut when he plays!”
The landlord GWD declined to comment to BILD on the matter. Mr. Nasseri is supposed to turn in his keys today or eviction looms.
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It’s called the mannequin challenge and it’s all the rage with teens.
You strike an action pose and get yourself filmed in it while the music plays on.
Like this.
Whatever.
The first orchestra to enter the mannequin challenge is… the Oregon Symphony.
You saw it here first.
Branka Stilinović was lead soprano of Croatian National Opera in Zagreb for three decades.
She also sang in Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary and Poland.
Branka died on November 4 in Rijeka and was buried today in Zagreb.
The great Wagnerian soprano has written frankly about how she spiralled into addictive behaviours and bad relationships, rebuilding her life and work after bariatic surgery.
But in this exclusive new interview with Zsolt Bognar she addresses the connection between operatic life and obsessive conduct, and the denial that prevails about body shape and well being. ‘I don’t believe anyone who weighs 300 pounds is happy with it,’ she says.
But she adds that weight criticism is always directed at women singers, seldom at men.
In this gentle, compelling conversation, Deborah Voigt displays a self-awareness rare among artists and a sense of true proportion between life and work.
For her last ambition she says, ‘I would like to have a really fulfilling personal life.’
The US violinist Thomas Suarez is back on the rant with a talk at the School of Oriental and African Studies in which he called Israel a ‘racist, fascist cult’ and likened Zionism to Nazism.
Suarez, a sometime player in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, has previously organised protests in the UK against the Israel Philharmonic.
Questions are being asked as to why he was invited to expressed such biased views at a recognised university.
UPDATE: The IPSO has ruled that the Daily Mail’s report of Suarez’s speech quoted here was inaccurate and distorted. You may read the IPSO ruling here. The JC has published a correcton here. We accepte that the statements contested by Mr Suarez are unfounded.
From a book cover: Thomas Suárez studied violin with Louise Behrend, Ivan Galamian, Felix Galimir, and Josef Gingold. A former member of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, he has worked with several of New York City’s major orchestras, including the American Composers’ Orchestra and the American Symphony Orchestra, and has held principal positions at the Spoleto Festival in Italy and with the orchestra at the Metropolitan Opera House playing for international ballet companies. As chamber musician he has toured through Japan, Southeast Asia, Morocco, and Micronesia, and held a quartet residency at Sarah Lawrence College.
The Thai-US conductor Somtow Sucharitkul has flown into some media turbulence after refusing to sit down and buckle up when ordered to do so by air crew.
Sucharitkul had got up to conduct his choir in the royal anthem as a mark of respect for the late king when the plane hit a bumpy patch.
His people are accusing the air crew of lack of respect.
