SCO & Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Edinburgh review: ‘deeply personal’
As soloist in Haydn’s C major Cello Concerto, Sheku Kanneh-Mason clearly set out to engage and connect, writes David Kettle
SCO, Andrew Manze, Sheku Kanneh-Mason & the SCO Academy, Usher Hall, Edinburgh ★★★★
Certain orchestras keep their education work somewhat behind closed doors – and, in fairness, a huge number of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s own outreach projects take place behind the scenes. You could hardly accuse the 36 young string players of the SCO Academy of lurking in the shadows, though: they were firmly in the Usher Hall’s spotlight for this concert, seated alongside the orchestra’s regular players and performing a brand new piece, not only commissioned for them but also co-created with them.
SCO Associate Composer Jay Capperauld’s Sinfonietta: Pathways, getting its world-premiere performance, was a wonderfully vivid, energetic creation that seemed to channel Rautavaara, John Adams and even Lord of the Rings composer Howard Shore in four brief but memorable movements that put all its players – younger and older, students and professionals alike – through their paces with snappy rhythms, lush harmonies and even a few unusual sonic effects. More importantly, its theme of journeys through life found fertile ground in the mixed and expanded orchestra: the performance, under principal guest conductor Andrew Manze’s urgent, perceptive direction, bristled with meaning.
There was a fitting parallel, too, in the concert’s concerto soloist: cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason first found fame as a BBC Young Musician winner aged 17 a decade ago, but his account of Haydn’s C major Cello Concerto was sprightly, crisp, buoyant and joyfully mature, even if intonation slipped slightly on some of his ascending runs. It was a deeply personal account, one informed but not restricted by period awareness, and one in which Kanneh-Mason clearly set out to engage and connect – with the orchestra and conductor, and with the audience. There was a youthful eagerness, too, to the Beethoven Eroica Symphony with which Manze closed the concert: it exploded into life, and maintained its brisk, bracing energy right through to its surprisingly light-footed, luminous conclusion.
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