Sheku Kanneh-Mason: ‘I had to place Black and classical next to each other in a way that made perfect sense'

The Guardian

02-05-2025

When I won BBC Young Musician, I couldn't believe it. When I heard my name my whole body shone with delight. My hand covered my open mouth and, as I saw when I watched the footage back later, relief mixed with impossible joy on my face. I walked out in front of the standing crowd like a boy in a dreamworld … my family in a row, crying. I found out, much later, that social media, although mostly delighted, was also hosting a thread of darkened disbelief, turning on the idea that being Black meant I couldn't possibly have been good enough. Surely, they said, this was a 'politically correct' decision. He only won because he was Black. I was the first and therefore the unconscionable, impossible winner. If there were none before me, that itself was proof there should be none of us now. We were damned if we won and damned if we didn't. Luckily, my parents folded all of this into their quiet whispering together and hid it from me …
I was very aware, though, of the kind of scrutiny I was weathering. The radio and newspaper interviews let me know without hiding it that I had questions to answer. On the one hand, was I a bona fide good cellist or'just' a Black musician? Was I really fit to be pushed into this spotlight and stand next to 'real' classical musicians who looked authentic? On the other hand, I was challenged, without having said a thing, for making my Black identity visible and meaningful when, surely, nothing mattered but the music? I remember thinking: 'Well, clearly it's on your mind because that's what you're asking me about.'
This double-bind thrust upon me of denial and yet responsibility for my identity was a confusing but familiar message, and I knew my job was to remain quiet, firm and thoughtful. The only route was working harder … I wanted, first and foremost, to concentrate on playing the cello, on improving all the time and being the best musician I could be. But I carried a responsibility I couldn't shake. I wanted to represent hope and possibility for children, families and people who relied on the visible fact of who I was. Having a choice didn't come into it as there was none and never had been. I couldn't pretend to be anyone I wasn't but somehow, I had to place Black and classical next to each other in a way that made perfect, undeniable and glorious sense.
In effect we have a two-tier education system in the UK, and its result is that we are educating our children differently from each other, along lines of disadvantage and plenty. Private schools offer prestigious music scholarships for skilled young musicians, and their music facilities are often state-of-the-art.
For example, Eton College's website boasts of an astonishing offering of 'two concert halls, a recording studio, three music technology suites, drum suites, a music library and a large number of teaching and practice rooms'. It also advertises music scholarships: 'Each year, around 27 boys from a wide variety of backgrounds arrive at Eton as part of our Music Award programme, receiving specialist support to develop their musical talents.' Similarly, on its website, Winchester College does not shy away from music as a valid, worthy, career aspiration: 'Music Awards are available to any candidate who shows exceptional musical talent. Many former pupils have highly successful careers as performers, conductors and composers.' And at Marlborough College, the website acknowledges and encourages music as a significant career possibility: 'Where applicable, individual learning programmes are designed to meet the demands and needs of those wishing to study music at conservatoire or university following Marlborough.'
To be educated in music within these schools, or education and opportunity outside, requires money, or class status or luck. It also requires desire, belief and an appreciation of the importance of music. And all this comes hand-in-hand with education and access.
I appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs in January 2024. When the host, Lauren Laverne, asked me whether I thought Rule, Britannia! should be dropped from the Last Night of the Proms repertoire, I said yes. There are a few things that are guaranteed to spark the volcano of racism that bubbles underground in the UK, and this is one of them. Many people outside the UK were frankly bemused by the rage I had quietly stoked, and could afford an amused and rather wry glance at it all, but from inside the atmosphere was toxic.
I am a passionate supporter of the BBC Proms. Its series of concerts are a testament to the strength and creativity of live classical music, and I treasure the significance of this summer festival and its continuing legacy. A number of the concerts are televised but it's always been the case that the Last Night is reserved for the showcase, prime-time slot. It's a night where Britishness is proudly exhibited in all its joy, pomp and ceremony. We hear music from around the UK – from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – sea shanties from Britain's island traditions, and compositions new and old. A lot of the repertoire is interchangeable and can be altered, dependent on the choice of musicians and programme planners, reflecting the passions or obsessions of the day.
One section, however, has become somehow immovable, and an ice-hard determination to preserve its place has settled around it. It's a moment that most musicians and those who decide the repertoire would dearly love to leave behind as a rather embarrassing reminder of a Britishness that celebrates imperial glory and subjugation. It's a moment that acts to turn away many who themselves, and their relatives and ascendants, are on the wrong side of that history. The angry and somewhat baffling energy directed at retaining Rule, Britannia! seems to rest on the idea that here is Britishness, here is Englishness. Here are the root and proof of 'our' nationalist pride, and this is who 'we' are. It makes no odds – and seems utterly enraging to the defenders of this song – that there are many of us who don't fit into that 'we', or who feel profoundly and aggressively attacked by it.
I had been honoured to perform at the Last Night the summer before. I loved playing and collaborating with the incredible Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen, and the Last Night is a wonderful culmination of the world-class, exciting, innovative, inclusive and exceptional concerts in the weeks that precede it. For Lise, as a Norwegian, there was nothing controversial about the lyrics of Rule, Britannia! or the charged sentiment within it, but for me, the situation was very different. I was not required to be on stage for its rowdy, raucous and heated rendition, the entire – almost entire – Royal Albert Hall of 5,000 people roaring the lines: 'Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves! Britons never, never, never will be slaves.' Using the words from a 1740 poem, Rule Britannia by James Thomson, and set to music by Thomas Arne in the same year, it is a composition tied to a particular kind of patriotism. Its vigour and intent were born in Britain's burgeoning slave trade and at the height of its thundering imperialism.
I wasn't asked on the radio to give my historical analysis of the song, but to explain how I felt and could have felt being in the room while the song was belted out, unapologetically and rousingly, all around me. I had chosen to remain backstage for this moment because, I explained, it made me – and many others – feel uncomfortable.
I said no more, but hoped my response was valid because honest. It was entirely true, and mattered, not just to me, but to whole groups of British people who felt we had a stake in a definition of Britishness. If our inclusion meant we should happily boast that we were not people who could be enslaved or subjugated by navy or army, we were radically not included. For my family, as descendants of slaves, or born in colonies, none of this was distant history. All my siblings and both my parents, loyal and wanting to support me, had been unable to escape their seats in the auditorium and sat, weak-kneed and heads bowed, as crowds stood and shout-sang their victorious nationhood around them. Most of my family were in tears by the end, and all of them were miserable and frightened.
My truthful and understated remark on Desert Island Discs, that the song made many of us 'uncomfortable' was greeted with an uproarious wave of censure and horror against me in the media, and an unguarded uprising of racist bile on social media. People called for me to be 'tagged, flogged and deported', to 'go back home' and to ''keep my mouth shut'. Extreme, inflammatory reactions such as these operate on the same spectrum as the indignant, offended responses I also received. It didn't matter how I felt, or how non-white people feel. It didn't matter that we suffered, were excluded or frightened by a nationalism we couldn't share. If we wanted to stay at the centre and apex of our most prestigious classical music festival, proudly broadcast nationally on Saturday evening television and radio, our voices had to be fervently and bitterly silenced. Then if playing classical music is an exercise in self-denial, role play and dishonesty, so many of us remain on the outside.
This is an edited extract from The Power of Music: How Music Connects Us All by Sheku Kanneh-Mason, published by Viking (£16.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy from guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
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