Winner of the J.M. Barrie Lifetime Award for Contribution to Children’s Arts 2018, and The ISM Distinguished Musician Award 2022, Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason lives in Nottingham and is a former Lecturer in English at The University of Birmingham. In 2020, she published the memoir, ‘House of Music: Raising the Kanneh-Masons’, which won The Royal Philharmonic Society Storytelling Award, and the Indie Book Award for Non-Fiction. Her latest book, ‘To be Young, Gifted and Black’, was longlisted for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction.
Kadiatu was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of The Royal Academy of Music in 2022 and she is also an Honorary Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. With her husband, Stuart, she has seven children, all of whom are classical musicians. The family has been the subject of several documentaries and received the prestigious ABO Award (from the Association of British Orchestras) in 2022, as well as The Best Classical Artist Award at The Google Awards in 2021. The family are appointed as Cultural Ambassadors for Antigua and Barbuda.
Kadiatu is on the Board of Trustees for ESTA String Teachers Association, The Nottingham Education Trust, Music Masters, Music in Secondary Schools Trust, National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain, Campaign for the Arts, Action for Children’s Arts, and on the Advisory Council for the Royal Philharmonic Society. She is President of Nottingham Harmonic Choir and Chester Philharmonic, an Honorary Friend of the British and International Federation of Festivals, a Music Mark Champion, Ambassador for Wonder Foundation and a Patron of Southwell and Swaledale Music Festivals. The family are patrons of Sinfonia Viva.
Kadiatu is continuing to write and gives talks, interviews and lectures on diversity in classical music, music education, issues of race and inclusion, literature and parenting.