Eloquent artistry and emotional engagement belong to Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s formidable musical armory. The cellist’s backstory and determination to embrace audiences outside the traditional circle of classical-music devotees have also contributed to his rise to global prominence, so much so that he has arguably done more than any performer since Lang Lang to transform popular perceptions of classical musicians. Kanneh-Mason was born the third of seven children in Nottingham in 1999, and his parents ensured that music was central to family life, not least through chamber performances with various permutations of the Kanneh-Mason siblings (resumed during the first Covid lockdown with live streams to a large online audience). Sheku began playing cello when he was six and won a scholarship three years later to study at the Royal Academy of Music’s Junior Academy. He proved an inspiration to young people of color in 2016 as the first Black performer to win the BBC Young Musician competition, as well as to people of all races and backgrounds with a strikingly mature interpretation of Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto. Kanneh-Mason’s debut album, released in 2018 under the apt title Inspiration, featured arrangements of Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry” and Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” in company with Shostakovich’s concerto. The lyrical warmth and expressive generosity of his playing connected with an estimated global television audience of two billion people when he played at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. Elgar, his second full recording, entered the Top 10 of the UK official album chart in 2020, a first for a cellist and for Elgar’s Cello Concerto.