Notes from childhood

As pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason releases a new album devoted to the music of youth, she speaks to Jessica Duchen about being a role model, her dedication to self-improvement and growing up in a famously musical family

- Jessica Duchen

Watching the rise and rise of Isata KannehMason has been one of the great joys in my line of work over recent years. As, of course, has been the rise and rise of her siblings Sheku, Braimah and Jeneba – and in a family of seven gifted siblings, they are probably not the last who will become musicians. But Isata, 26, is the eldest and in many ways the one who set the family pattern.

Isata arrives at the Universal Classics office in a warm winter jumper and jeans, with her hair woven into multiple braids, the perfect combination of charisma and unpretentiousness. Much the same could be said of her playing. She generally chooses not to flaunt her own considerable virtuoso capabilities, instead absorbing her sense of flair into a many-volumed library of musical gifts. Some might feel there is something touchingly old-fashioned about her dedicated attitude to her art, in the best sense, and it is showing its worth.

Her latest release for Decca is devoted to music on the theme of childhood, involving works by Dohnányi, Mozart, Schumann and Debussy. She is no stranger to the recording studio: her Clara Schumann debut album was an impressive hit, followed by Summertime offering Coleridge-Taylor, Beach, Barber and Gershwin and, with her celebrated cellist brother Sheku, a collection of Barber and Rachmaninov entitled Muse.

‘What usually happens with my albums is that I’m drawn initially to a particular piece of music,’ Isata says, ‘and then the recording is usually built around that work. This time, it was the Dohnányi