The UGA Performing Arts Center has a new resident — 9 feet long, covered in rich black lacquer, and built for use by some of the world's finest musicians. It's a Steinway piano from Hamburg, Germany, and it's being inaugurated in a recital by this season's Artist in Focus, Isata Kanneh-Mason. She'll play Robert Schumann's Scenes from Childhood, on a program of pieces by Haydn, Chopin and Fanny Mendelssohn. Her childhood was certainly unusual — she is one of seven celebrated sisters and brothers ranging in age from 13 to 26. All of them play either violin, piano or cello. Isata Kanneh-Mason's emerging career has already taken her far from her native Nottingham, England. This season alone she'll perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra and on a Royal Philharmonic Orchestra tour that comes to Athens in January. With her cellist brother, Sheku, she'll appear in recital in Japan, Singapore, and South Korea — in addition to an extensive European recital tour.
Isata Kanneh-Mason
