Just in: Sheku suffers finger blight
OrchestrasMessage from the British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason:
I have recently sustained an injury to one of the fingers on my left hand and have been advised by my consultant to refrain from playing the cello it while it heals. It’s with great sadness that I have had to cancel my concerts through the remainder of 2025.I really look forward to returning to the concert platform in 2026.
Sheku played the world premiere of Edmund Finnis’ Cello Concerto with the LA Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Hall and dropped out of the Sunday matinee. He was replaced this weekend by the London Philharmonic for Bloch’s Shelomo with Nicolas Altstaedt.
We wish Sheku a swift recovery.
I wish him a swift recovery.
We all do, he’s a gifted young cellist. But I worry about his spine. Every photo I’ve seen of him shows a slouching young fellow. Is he being encouraged to pose in such a way, so as to appear more “hip”? Spending so much time at the cello in that posture is recipe for ouchies.
Good. Maybe now it can finally be admitted that this totally mediocre cellist would be just another unknown if it weren’t for woke and DEI.
So what if he hurt himself? Let me assure one and I all that I simply couldn’t care less.
That’s rather unfair. I also don’t think much of him as a cellist but the guy hurt himself. Give him a break.
The feeling that I couldn’t care less is entirely mutual regarding your totally insensitive comment. Whatever your views, he is an incredibly hard-working musician who has done a great deal to bring his instrument to audiences that might never have listened to classical music. For those reasons alone, he deserves respect. I wonder, do your views extend to the rest of his rather talented family?
Betsey, how many readers of this blog care whether you care? And I wouldn’t wish an injury on any musician.
Betsey shows us why the general populace regards classical music as a haughty and judgemental sideshow.
Not haughty and judgmental — racist and homophobic (see the thread on the Winnipeg Messiah). Nobody would confuse this character’s motives with whatever hauteur they observe in classical music fans. She operates from the dirt.
Vicious!
Wow, Betsey. Unnecessarily cold.
Jesus Christ, Betsey. Do you ever worry a house will fall on you?
High level musicians really need to be more careful. Murray Perahiah tore up a hand, Schumann tried to invent a finger strengthened and messed up the tendons instead, and there must be others.
Perhaps even more gruesome was when violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg sliced off the tip of her fourth finger while preparing a holiday meal for friends.
I have every sympathy for Sheku. Musicians are not immune from accidents as we all are, no matter what care we take in our everyday lives. I’m sure he will make a speedy recovery. I’ve broken two fingers in my career and the healed injury has turned out to be just as agile and even stronger than the original pristine joint.