Collective Listening Project

Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason Selects

Playlist No. 36

About the Playlist

November 26, 2020
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The month-long spotlight on the fabulous Kanneh-Mason family comes to a close with a playlist curated by pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason. Isata is a post-graduate at The Royal Academy of Music, studying piano with Carole Presland, having been awarded the Gwendolyn Reiche Memorial Scholarship. Isata 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 Harold Craxton Chamber Music Prize 2018, and the Wilfred Parry (Brahms) Prize 2018 at The Royal Academy. She and her brother Sheku will give our next virtual concert live from their living room in Nottingham, England on Sunday, November 29 at 3PM (EST).

FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11
Martha Argerich, piano with the London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado, conductor

I grew up listening to Argerich, and so hearing her play takes me straight back to my childhood. My dad in particular loves Chopin, and so this piece would always be playing!

FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN Mazurka in A Minor, Op. post. 68, No. 2
Sergei Rachmaninoff, piano

Rachmaninoff is an incredible pianist, and he plays in a way that is not really heard nowadays. His use of rubato and voicing is very inspiring for me.

ERNST VON DOHNÁNYI Serenade in C Major, Op. 10
Domus

I love Dohnányi as a composer and am currently learning his piano quintet. I also like to sometimes listen to pieces that have no piano in them because it takes me into a completely different sound world.

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF “Zdes’ khorosho” (“How fair is the spot”), Op. 21, No. 7
Itzhak Perlman, violin

I chose “How fair is the spot” simply because I love Rachmaninoff’s compositions as well as his piano playing, and I think that this particular piece (originally a song but this recording for violin) is really beautiful!

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