Isata Kanneh-Mason: Tiny Desk Concert

Tom Huizenga | January 7, 2025
When it comes to musical dynasties, the Bach family is tough to beat, although today’s Kanneh-Mason clan is formidable. The Bachs included some 75 active musicians over a 200-year span, including superstar Johann Sebastian. The Kanneh-Mason household, from England, is just getting started, but boasts seven siblings, each classically trained, with a few having launched major careers, including the eldest, Isata, who brings three of her favorite pieces to our trusty Tiny Desk upright piano.

In her early years, Kanneh-Mason, like many budding pianists, practiced the easier works by Chopin. And, like visiting an old friend, she keeps returning to the so-called poet of the piano, but in this performance she plays the difficult and rambunctious finale to Chopin’s Third Piano Sonata. With cascades of chords, rippling arpeggios and romantic sweep, just getting to all of the notes is a major feat.

As a second course, Kanneh-Mason offers contrasting music by Franz Liszt, the ne plus ultra of Romantic era piano virtuosos, whose serene side gets the spotlight in the Consolation No. 3 — dressed in diaphanous curlicues and lacy ornamentation.

Kanneh-Mason closes with an arrangement of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, a Black British composer who died young in 1912. Coleridge-Taylor holds a special place in the heart of Kanneh-Mason and her family because his father hailed from Sierra Leone, the birthplace of Kanneh-Mason’s mother.

“Growing up, I never really saw any Black composers within the classical music field,” Kanneh-Mason explains. Now, with her career rising, she’s extending their legacy.


SET LIST
Frédéric Chopin: Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor - IV. Finale
Franz Liszt: Consolation No. 3 in D-flat major
Traditional (arr. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor): “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”

MUSICIANS
Isata Kanneh-Mason: piano

TINY DESK TEAM
Producer: Tom Huizenga
Director/Editor: Kara Frame
Audio Technical Director: Josephine Nyounai
Host/Series Producer: Bobby Carter
Videographers: Kara Frame, Joshua Bryant, Wendy Li
Audio Engineer: Neil Tevault
Production Assistant: Ashley Pointer
Photographer: Estefania Mitre
Tiny Desk Team: Maia Stern, Hazel Cills, Josh Newell
Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed
Series Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson
VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins

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