RACHMANINOFF Featuring Pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason at the Hollywood Bowl

The epic works of Sergei Rachmaninoff call for more than dazzling piano technique. They require artistry that suspends time, draws us in emotionally and transports us so completely that the boundaries between performer, instrument and audience simply disappear. That was the magic British pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason created under the evening sky at the Hollywood Bowl on August 27, making her debut at the historic venue with an extraordinary interpretation of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor.

With fingers that seemed to fly yet dance across the Steinway’s keyboard with remarkable agility and sensitivity, she revealed the full emotional spectrum of the masterpiece. Under the spirited direction of Gemma New, the Los Angeles Philharmonic became an intuitive, responsive partner.

The concerto’s opening chords established a dark, tolling atmosphere before the strings introduced sweeping, uplifting sounds. Kanneh-Mason’s playing was both delicate and commanding, her rapid passages sparkling with clarity as the strings gathered momentum. She summoned cascades of percussive chords and dramatic flourishes before retreating into a lighter touch, allowing individual notes to linger. The tension ebbed and flowed as New shaped the orchestral surges, bringing brass and strings into vivid dialogue with the soloist.

The Adagio sostenuto offered the evening’s most intimate passages. Against the strings’ gentle accompaniment, Kanneh-Mason softened her touch as she traced the movement’s tender, nocturnal melodies. The flute and clarinet emerged with sweetness, entering a conversation with the piano that felt less like a concerto than a meeting of kindred voices. Listeners familiar with Eric Carmen’s 1975 pop hit “All by Myself”—whose central melody draws on this movement—might have recognized its haunting musical inspiration.

Kanneh-Mason made these quieter passages as compelling as the bravura displays. Her phrasing possessed a gossamer lightness, while subtle dynamic shifts lent each phrase emotional weight. Gradually, tranquility gave way to haunting, percussive chords and increasingly rapid runs. Her hands traversed the keyboard with mesmerizing agility, moving from shadowy lower registers to brilliant high notes as the orchestra gathered force. In the finale, New’s broad, fluid gestures alternated with intense, precise movements as horns and strings surged around the pianist. Kanneh-Mason responded with swirling figures and emphatic flourishes, driving the concerto toward its triumphant conclusion.

Raised in Nottingham in an exceptionally musical family, Kanneh-Mason began studying piano at three before training at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. A finalist in the 2018 BBC Young Musician competition, she subsequently made her BBC Proms debut performing Florence Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement, championing a composer whose work deserves a lasting place in the repertoire. Her artistry combines reverence for the classical tradition with a commitment to broadening its horizons.

Behind the concerto’s dramatic contrasts lies a deeply personal story of healing and artistic rebirth. Several years earlier, Rachmaninoff suffered a severe depression that left him struggling to compose. With the help of physician Nikolai Dahl, whose treatment helped restore his confidence, he gradually rediscovered his creative voice. The Second Piano Concerto emerged from that recovery, and Rachmaninoff dedicated it to Dahl in gratitude. Hearing Kanneh-Mason navigate its shadowy introspection, tender lyricism and exhilarating surges of sound, it was difficult not to feel that history resonating through her performance.

After intermission, Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, his final major composition, shifted the evening into a darker, more modern orchestral landscape. Angular rhythms, restless dance figures and richly contrasting instrumental colors revealed a composer pushing beyond familiar Romantic lushness. Its shifting moods and powerful brass writing gave New and the Philharmonic ample opportunity to demonstrate their collective strength, bringing the concert to an intense, muscular close.

Throughout the evening, conductor Gemma New proved a compelling presence, passionate without excess, disciplined without rigidity, and attentive to the music’s intimate details as well as its grandest climaxes. Yet the lasting impression belonged to Kanneh-Mason. Her performance of the Second Piano Concerto was a remarkable union of fire and finesse, intellect and feeling—a reminder that the greatest virtuosity lies not merely in conquering difficult music, but in making it speak directly to the heart.