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Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason: ‘Growing up, I didn’t know of many Black classical musicians’
13 April 2021, 13:17 | Updated: 13 April 2021, 14:22
Sheku Kanneh-Mason: 'It's obvious there’s an extreme lack of diversity in classical music'
The star cellist tells Black Lives in Music of his love for Dvořák and Dr Dré, and how the ‘extreme’ lack of racial diversity in classical music is tightly bound with the dwindling presence of music in schools.
For so many young, Black, creative people sitting at home that day, seeing Sheku Kanneh-Mason bowing his cello for a televised audience of two billion people at the Duke of Duchess of Sussex’s Royal Wedding was a moment – a moment in which they saw a musician at the top of his game, who looked like themselves and their families.
“It’s very, very difficult to see yourself doing something if no-one who looks like you is doing it,” Sheku tells broadcaster Zeze Millz in an interview for Black Lives in Music, a new organisation