It was back in 2022 in the post-COVID times when our live music senses were recharging, that UCSB Arts & Lectures proffered an auspicious local introduction to a fast-rising brother and sister from the U.K., pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason and cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason . The dynamic duo duly impressed with their recital at Campbell Hall, and both musicians have returned, singly, to various venues and under different organizational umbrellas in the interim. For one, Isata gave a powerful reading of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 last year through CAMA, at the Granada.
As a fitting endpiece to a notable A&L season, the siblings had a “homecoming” recital at Campbell Hall late in May, four years richer and deeper in musical wisdom. Their welcome return came as the closing event of a season — the last officially under the aegis of retiring A&L head Celesta Billeci’s prized 25-year run — which rose to special classical music heights. On that list were Yo-Yo Ma, the Danish String Quartet, Julia Bullock in both Messiaen’s Harawi and with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, a piano pairing of greats Yuja Wang and Vikingur Ólafsson, the London Philharmonic, the adventurous new quartet Owls, and trusty old crowd favorite Itzhak Perlman.
If we didn’t know better, such a line-up would seem big city-suitable.
