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Sheku Kanneh-Mason and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by Roberto González-Monjas, Premiere Edmund Finnis's Cello Concerto

Nov. 25, 2025

November 21-23 saw the world premiere performances of Edmund Finnis's Cello Concerto by Sheku Kanneh-Mason and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, under the baton of Roberto González-Monjas at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

Edmund Finnis notes:

"The piece opens with the orchestra creating a wide, shimmering space across which the cello sounds out long, lyrical lines. Melodic patterns recur and evolve, heard in different speeds and guises, becoming more urgent with each iteration. Waves of energy accumulate and disperse as the movement traces a gradual overall intensification.

The central movement is a lament. Amid a nocturnal atmosphere, the cello sings a song of yearning against shifting harmonies, crying out before eventually arriving at a solitary space. Here the resonant sounds of the cello’s lower strings expand and contract, as if slow, deep breaths. The movement ends with a gradual descent through the moon-glow of faint string overtones.

Out of quiet origins, a sense of flowing, propulsive energy comes to define the final movement. The cello glides above the iterative patterning of the orchestra’s streams of notes before assuming that sense of flowing energy itself. The outpouring music moves ever forwards, the singing out of the cello becoming radiant, ecstatic.

It was especially meaningful to write this concerto for the instrument that I loved playing in my youth. Growing up, much of my life was spent expressing musical ideas through singing and playing the cello. This concerto is concerned with all of those things: the cello, singing, expression, life."

Listen to Sheku Kanneh-Mason play Prelude I by Edmund Finnis:

Prelude I/Edmund Finnis/Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cello

To learn more about Edmund Finnis, visit schott-music.com.

Edmund Finnis
Cello Concerto (2024-2025)
for cello and orchestra
pic.1.2.1.bcl(dbl. cl.).1.cbn-4.2.1.btbn.1-timp-2perc(t.t., pipple gong, crot. (bowed), b.d., vib., bongos, 4bell plates (A3, C4, D4, E4), glock., mar.)-hp-str
25'

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