From a family of seven musical siblings, pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason goes solo

When pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason made her Philadelphia debut in 2019, she might have appeared to be riding the coattails of her brother and concert partner Sheku — an instant star after playing the cello at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

But nothing sharpens the spotlight like a solo recital, and Sunday afternoon the pianist returned to the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society for an old-fashioned piano recital of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff (as well as two more contemporary composers and a Gershwin encore), and her contours began to come into view.

It’s probably safe to say that Kanneh-Mason faces a challenge so rare it rivals the Bach family. Raised in Nottingham, England, she has six brothers and sisters — all of whom play the piano, cello, or violin. How does one develop and assert individuality in such a musical hothouse?

Every musician must navigate influences of some kind, and Kanneh-Mason, at age 25, appeared at the Perelman Theater with a musical philosophy that was firm and consistent across composers, styles, and periods. She can be a bit reserved, but has a sensitivity to sound production that, even at its loudest, is rounded and beautifully wrought.

The progression to a more extroverted expressive style during the course of the recital probably had more to do with the succession of repertoire than a growing comfort level. She took the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in C Minor, K. 457 in a single breath, more breezy than angry. The third movement could be matter of fact, but her restraint had a purpose, making the alternating flashes of poetry and intensity all the more meaningful.

Chopin’s Ballade in F Major, Opus 38 was hardly profound. I kept listening for more of a personal imprint in Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in F Minor, Opus 2, No. 1, but it was not to be, even if there was much to be admired in the way the pianist pressed forward the phrasing.

It might have been Rachmaninoff that stirred her passions the most, in selections from his Opus 39 Études-Tableaux — her impressive technique in the service of the composer’s fury of the “Allegro Agitato” movement, and an ear for evoking creepy things glinting in the dark of the “Lento Assai.”

She was a smart curator, too. Sofia Gubaidulina’s Chaconne, from early in the composer’s career (1962), seemed to evolve in a straight line from Shostakovich. Kanneh-Mason caught this spiritual kinship perfectly, from its austere granite-like opening to a frantic middle section and on to a star-filled (though still disturbing) dream.

The pianist brought both order and a cascading energy to Cwicseolfor (old English for “Quicksilver”) by Jamaica-born U.K. composer Eleanor Alberga. It’s a discursive work, with periods of dissonant thicket followed by a clearing of the air. Kanneh-Mason, for whom the work was written, was especially formidable in the stretch that starts with a Ravel-like ascending figure before the piece ends in a blaze. Whether this was a stroke of genuine risk-taking or it just sounded that way, here was the pianist from whom I’d love to hear more.