Coming Soon, Decca sign up young cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason

Decca have announced a long-term partnership with the outstanding young cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who in May made history as the first black winner of BBC Young Musician of the Year; his first recording will include Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1, the work which secured his victory at the competition and prompted The Times to observe that 'the cellist soared straight to the concerto’s heart'.

The seventeen year old's credits also include the Young Instrumentalist Prize at this year's Royal Philharmonic Society Awards (where he performed Shostakovich as part of the Kanneh-Mason Piano Trio with two of his seven musician siblings), the Gregynog Young Musician Award 2015, and a slew of prizes at the Junior Royal Academy of Music where he is currently a student.

Sheku and his family (who were also semi-finalists in Britain's Got Talent last year) will be the subject of a TV documentary, Young, Gifted And Classical: The Making Of A Maestro, which will be broadcast on BBC Four on 20th November and will focus on the issue of diversity in the classical music world as well as the aftermath of the Young Musician win - several of the brothers and sisters are involved with Chineke!, Europe's first professional Black and minority ethnics orchestra (established last year by the double-bass player and co-founder of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Chi-chi Nwanoku), with whom Sheku made his Royal Festival Hall debut in the Haydn C major Concerto (including a new cadenza of his own) in September.

You can watch Sheku Kanneh-Mason's award-winning performance of Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto in full here