The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has announced its 2026 season – a star-studded line-up of international soloists, including one of the Kanneh-Mason family who have become a classical music phenomenon.
In Britain, a new second album featuring all seven siblings has just rocketed to the top of the UK classical charts, a place some of the Kanneh-Masons are already familiar with.
Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason, the eldest of the seven teenagers and twentysomethings will be in NZ in October, performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27 in Wellington and Christchurch with the NZSO, followed by a solo recital in Auckland.
Her 2019 debut album also entered the UK classical charts at number one, four years after she and four of her siblings were semi-finalists on Britain’s Got Talent. The family’s path to classical music stardom has been covered extensively, including in two books by their former English lecturer mother, Dr Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason – House of Music: Raising the Kanneh-Masons (2020) this year’s To Be Young, Gifted and Black.
Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason was the first Black musician to win the BBC Young Musician Award in 2016, two years before he performed at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Isata Kanneh-Mason isn’t the only young star in the 2026 line-up – 22-year-old Spanish violin virtuoso María Dueñas opens the NZSO’s 2026 season in Wellington and Christchurch performing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the orchestra led by renowned Venezuelan conductor Rodolfo Barráez.
And the young and gifted line-up includes a local –15-year-old piano prodigy Shan Liu who performs Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto with the NZSO led by Spanish maestro Jaime Martín.
The 2026 programme also features the return of celebrated UK-Australian pianist Sir Stephen Hough in a performance of Saint-Saëns’ Fifth Piano Concerto (The Egyptian), which will be part of a concert featuring the premiere of NZ composer Ross Harris’ Concerto for Orchestra.
Guest overseas conductors throughout the season include Scot Sir Donald Runnicles (a programme of Brahms and Richard Strauss), Finn Pietari Inkinen (Wagner, Sibelius, Magnus Lindberg), Australians Benjamin Northey and Dane Lam, as well as countryman, conductor-harpsichordist Erin Helyard making his NZSO debut in December for Handel’s Messiah.
Making his NZ debut is acclaimed Dutch trombonist Jörgen van Rijen for the world premiere of American composer Andrew Norman’s Trombone Concerto.
NZSO artistic advisor and principal conductor Gemma New says the orchestra’s audiences will experience both familiar favourites and new perspectives.
“Our theme while planning this season has been ‘big ideas, big emotions.”
During 2026, the orchestra will perform more than 40 concerts in 15 centres. Tickets go on sale from September 23.
