The oldest of the seven performing Kanneh-Mason siblings, Isata Kanneh-Mason has garnered both critical and commercial success. Her career has developed somewhat more slowly than those of some of her younger brothers and sisters, but it grew strongly in the early 2020s with major prizes and the release of two critically acclaimed and commercially successful albums on the Decca label.

Isata Kanneh-Mason was born in Britain in 1996 and grew up in Nottingham. Her father, Stuart Mason, is a business executive of Antiguan background; her mother, Kadiatu Kanneh, is a university educator born in Sierra Leone and has chronicled her experiences in the book Raising the Kanneh-Masons. Like most of the other siblings, Isata attended the Royal Academy of Music. She earned an undergraduate degree as an Elton John Scholar, and she performed with her benefactor in 2013 in Los Angeles. Kanneh-Mason received a master's degree from the Academy in 2020, studying with Carole Presland and Hamish Milne, and she has continued her studies with Alasdair Beatson. Kanneh-Mason won several major prizes at home and abroad, including the Opus Klassik Award in Germany for Best Young Artist in 2020 and, the following year, the Leonard Bernstein Award.

In July 2019, Kanneh-Mason released her debut album on the Decca label, Romance: The Piano Music of Clara Schumann, which entered British classical charts at No. 1. Kanneh-Mason and her siblings performed a streaming chamber version of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37, from their home in Nottingham during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. She made her recital debut at Wigmore Hall that year, featuring female composers for International Women's Day, and also appeared in streamed concerto performances with several major orchestras. Her second album, Summertime, featuring works by Gershwin and other American composers, appeared in the summer of 2021. During the 2021-2022 season, she was slated to perform a full schedule of concertos with major orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic (at the Hollywood Bowl), the Dallas Symphony, and the Royal Philharmonic. She has served as Young Artist in Residence with the Liverpool Philharmonic, continuing into the 2021-2022 season, and she also planned a solo recital tour of North America for that season. Kanneh-Mason often plays duets with her younger brother Sheku, and she has performed chamber music with a variety of other artists. ~ James Manheim, Rovi