Listen to the pianist from Cumbria taking social media by storm

A pianist who lives in Carlisle and has taken social media by storm is gearing up to play a concert at one of Britain's major cathedrals.

Rahul Suntah - who is originally from Mauritius - started posting videos of his piano on Instagram playing and has racked up almost 28,000 Instagram followers in the process.

The 24-year-old has been invited to play a prestigious concert at Manchester Cathedral, which he told ITV Border he is looking forward to.

He said: "It is actually my first concert in Manchester so yeah I'm pretty excited. There's going to be a selection of really great talent as well: there will be a couple of soul singers there'll be saxophonists and a choir - the G Choir; the BBC choir."

He has been playing the piano since he was a child, having been inspired by his mum who was also a fan of the instrument.

It was while he was a student though that he realised his love of music could provide him with a career.

"I started putting, making videos on YouTube and social media and I was playing more often live. There was this talent show that I played in and I won the second prize in and yeah it was exciting," he said.

"Things started to get wild and the first video that went viral it was me playing 'Despacito' it was a hit at the time and it just went viral and my following just went up and then it was last year I played Mozart in the snow with gloves on. It attracted a lot of attention."

"I like to get more creative and more unconventional for sure so I use piano extended techniques. I like to play with the strings, tap the piano and do crazy things with it."

Rahul will perform in Manchester on February 11.