This recording stems from a long and personal relationship with the composer’s music, which reached a major public milestone when she made her BBC Proms solo debut in 2023, performing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

The eldest of the famous musical siblings, Isata recalls at the time: “I’m playing Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto, one of my favourites, completely crazy and very rhythmic.”. “That’s something I really relate to, the patterns and precision.” She first heard the concerto at the age of 18 through a YouTube performance by Yuja Wang. “I instantly fell in love with it and dreamed about playing it,” she says. “It was another eight years before I started learning it properly, but I listened to it constantly. It’s always exciting to bring this piece to new people. The music speaks to a place deep inside of me. I feel very free when I perform it.”

The concerto has been a key part of Isata Kanneh-Mason’s concert life. She has performed it with orchestras across the UK, Europe, and North America, including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Bremer Philharmoniker, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on tour in the United States, and brought it to a wide national audience at the BBC Proms.

A significant milestone came with performances of the concerto in Toronto under the baton of Ryan Bancroft, followed by her BBC Proms debut with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. These performances directly informed the recording, which was made with Bancroft and the Philharmonia Orchestra, bringing a shared performance history into the studio.

'Prokofiev' places the Concerto at the centre of a wider programme exploring the composer’s piano music across different periods and styles. Alongside the concerto, which moves between dreamy lyricism, percussive rhythms and dazzling virtuosity, the album includes early pieces such as the Toccata, Ten Pieces for Piano and the striking Sonata No. 3, works that already show Prokofiev’s restless imagination and rhythmic bite. These sit alongside piano transcriptions from Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella, where pointed energy and humour contrast with moments of tenderness and lyrical ease, as well as music from The Love for Three Oranges, whose March and Scherzo capture the composer’s satirical edge. Completing the programme is Troika from Lieutenant Kijé, a piece full of colour and character that reflects Prokofiev’s gift for memorable melody and vivid storytelling.