Simone Young

Chief Conductor

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Acclaimed as ‘a profound and greatly gifted artist’ (Gramophone) and ‘a pianist who makes lines sing beautifully and virtuosic passages dance,’ (BBC Music Magazine), this captivating pianist brings her energy and precision to the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.  

The jaw-dropping virtuosity, power and nuance demanded by these big works makes this a program of exciting moments. Two of Beethoven’s best-loved sonatas, the shadowy, poetic Moonlight and the exuberant Waldstein, are paired with Ravel’s fiendishly difficult Gaspard de la Nuit – one of the most demanding pieces in the piano repertoire. In Isata’s hands, the vivid atmospheres and poignant intensity of these works become thrillingly present.  

As a quietly radiant counterpoint, two pieces by contemporary Bulgarian-British composer Dobrinka Tabakova round out one must-see Sydney debut.

If you love the pure pleasure of piano in recital, you will get so much out of this debut by a performer who’s leaving audiences buzzing around the world over. 

Program

BEETHOVEN

Piano Sonata No.14, Moonlight

RAVEL

Gaspard de la Nuit

Dobrinka TABAKOVA

Nocturne

Dobrinka TABAKOVA

Halo

BEETHOVEN

Piano Sonata No.21, Waldstein

Artists

Isata Kanneh-Mason

Piano

Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason offers eclectic and stimulating recital programs with repertoire encompassing Haydn and Mozart, Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, Chopin and Brahms to Gershwin and beyond. In concerto, she is equally at home in Felix Mendelssohn and Beethoven as in Prokofiev and Rachmaninov.

Isata is in high demand from concert halls and orchestras worldwide. In July 2024, she was invited to perform at the First Night of the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Symphony and conductor Elim Chan, a performance which resulted in stellar reviews in the mainstream press. Isata went on to appear as concerto soloist with the European Union Youth Orchestra and Iván Fischer in summer 2024 performing Dohnányi’s Variations on a Nursery Tune at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

Highlights of the 2025/26 season include Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto with Bar Avni and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and with Petr Popelka with the Prague Radio Symphony at the Rudolfinum. Isata makes further debuts with the Naples Philharmonic and Seattle Symphony, and returns to the City of Birmingham Symphony, the BBC Scottish Symphony, Detroit Symphony and National Arts Centre Orchestra Ottawa.

Isata continues her collaboration with her brother, Sheku, for a European duo recital tour in February, taking in Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, Geneva, Turin, Amsterdam and London’s Wigmore Hall. In the Americas, the duo will perform in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Montevideo, Boston, Washington DC, Cleveland and New York’s Lincoln Center. Isata also appears in solo recital and in chamber music at Wigmore Hall, with further solo recital appearances at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Brucknerhaus in Linz, Powell Hall in St Louis, De Bijloke in Ghent, the Howland Music Circle in New York, Norwegian National Opera in Oslo and a return to the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society among others.

In 2024/25, Isata gave performances with bass-baritone Gerald Finley in the Czech Republic and Germany, appeared in solo recital at the Lucerne Festival, Piano aux Jacobins Toulouse, the Schumann-Haus Düsseldorf, PHIL Haarlem and on tour across the USA, and performed with the London, Bergen, Bremen, and Duisburg philharmonics, the North Carolina Symphony, and on tour with the Staatskapelle Weimar and the Residentie Orkest.

Isata is a Decca Classics artist and has recorded four solo albums for the label – Romance (2019), Summertime (2021), Childhood Tales (2023) and Mendelssohn (2024). Her most recent release presents music from two Mendelssohn siblings, including the glittering First Piano Concerto by Felix and the long-lost ‘Easter Sonata’ by his exceptionally talented but overlooked elder sister Fanny, alongside transcriptions of some of Felix’s most famous music by Rachmaninoff and Liszt. 

Isata has received many awards, including the coveted Leonard Bernstein Award from the Schleswig-Holstein Festival and an Opus Klassik award for best young artist. She also enjoys composing and arranging and released two albums of her favourite works for intermediate and advanced piano students through ABRSM Publishing in 2023.