Cassie Kinoshi is a Mercury Prize-nominated (2019) and Ivors Academy Award-winning (2018) London-based composer, arranger and alto-saxophonist. As an artist, she performs in her own band seed. as well as being a key member of KOKOROKO and Nérija (as both performer and co-writer). She is a composition graduate of the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and is passionate about working as an educator and workshop leader. 

‘Driftglass', her debut album with seed. (formally known as SEED Ensemble) was a Hyundai Mercury Prize nomination and nominee of the Jazz FM Awards ‘Album of the Year' 2020, at which Cassie was awarded the ‘Breakthrough Act of The Year' prize in 2019. 

Cassie is an in-demand composer for ballet and theatre with production credits including National Theatre (Top Girls), BalletBoyz (Bradley 4:18 and YES),  The Old Vic (as part of the Old Vic 12 2016-17) and Battersea Arts Centre (SuperBlackMan). 

For Autumn 2021, Cassie was Artist in Residence at King’s Place for their London Unwrapped festival. Her residency includes the world premiere of ‘Three Suns Suite’, a new commission for Aurora Orchestra, the world premiere of echo  Cassie's immersive film installation made in collaboration with visual artist Anne Verehij featuring music from Chineke! Orchestra. Cassie has also curated Synthesis, a night of forward-reaching artists from London featuring Lunch Money Life, Joviale and un.procedure, a new trio led by Piera Onacko with Cassie and electronic artist Nathan England-Jones. 

In 2021, Cassie’s new piece Solaristic Precepts commissioned by London Sinfonietta was premiered as part of the project ‘London Third Stream’ alongside new commissions by Shabaka Hutchings, Laura Jurd and Elliot Galvin for the EFG London Jazz Festival. For Solaristic Precepts, Cassie drew inspiration from the philosophical approaches to music and life by the formidable musician, composer and thinker Sun Ra. Kinoshi also led the She is Jazz initiative for Serious’ EFG London Jazz Festival and has released the soundtrack to Bradley 4:18 (originally commissioned by BalletBoyz as part of 2020 production 'Deluxe' and broadcast on BBC 4 / iPlayer and due to tour nationally in March 2022) on her own label BeatPrint Records.  

She was Mercury Musical Developments' and Musical Theatre Network’s Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer Scheme recipient at Dundee Rep Theatre and was a part of the London Symphony Orchestra Panufnik Scheme 2018-19.

Cassie is currently working on a new eagerly anticipated audio-visual album for seed.  

Theatre composition credits: 

Top Girls (National Theatre), The Little Prince adapted by Inua Ellams (Stratford Circus Arts Centre), All The Shit I Can’t Say To My Dad (This Is Black, Bunker Theatre), Teleportation (This is Black, Bunker Theatre), Blue Beneath My Skin (This Is Black, Bunker Theatre), SuperBlackMan (Battersea Arts Centre), Pagans (Old Vic Theatre, Old Vic 12), Exceptional Mercy (Old Vic Theatre, Old Vic 12), Hy Brasil (Old Vic Theatre, Old Vic 12) Feather by Feather (Old Vic Workrooms), Bobsleigh Team (Old Vic Workrooms)

Film & Advertising credits: 

"Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead”: Tour of the Old Vic (Old Vic Theatre/National Theatre)Undercurrent (London Short Film Festival Best Experimental Film Nominee 2018) ONES, On An Empty Stomach (ICA Best Experimental Short Film Award Nominee 2017)

Dance composition credits: 

BalletBoyz, 'Bradley 4:18' from Deluxe (Sadlers Wells & BBC 4 / iPlayer)

Orchestral comissions: 

'Three Suns Suite' (Aurora Orchestra) , 'Solaristic Precepts' (London Sinfonietta) 

Awards and Nominations: 

Mercury Award Nominee 2019 (Driftglass, SEED Ensemble), Jazz FM Breakthrough Act of the Year Winner 2019, Ivors Academy Award Winner 2018 (formerly known as British Composer Award, BASCA), Best Jazz Composition for Large Ensemble (Afronaut, SEED Ensemble), Parliamentary

Jazz Award 2017 for Best Newcomer (Nérija), Jazz FM Breakthrough Act of the Year Nominee 2016 (Nérija), BBC Young Composer of the Year Nominee 2012 Outside of theatre, Cassie has worked as a curator for the Royal Albert Hall's Elgar Room alongside Moses Boyd (Unstoppable Voices, 2018) as well as writing and arranging music for events such as Women of the World Festival 2017 (Royal Festival Hall). She also featured as a part of Soweto Kinch's BBC Four show Jazzology and is regularly invited as a radio and live panel guest to discuss politics, society and music. Cassie also works as an educator and workshop leader, most recently at the EFG London Jazz Festival 2019 for Serious' Womxn Make Music performance at the Southbank Centre.

PRAISE FOR seed. (formerly known as SEED Ensemble) 

‘The players on this heartfelt and accomplished brew of African, Caribbean and urban dance grooves, R&B and 60s Blue Note-ish ensemble harmonies are mostly young Londoners. But they often sound like old souls, and with roots in varied places'
- The Guardian

'Kinoshi solos with a biting tone, and, buoyed by the leader’s arrangements, all are impressively on song.'
- Financial Times 

'This is music full of drama and variety in terms of instrumentation, dynamics, harmony and rhythm.'
-  London Jazz News