Cassie Kinoshi is a Mercury Prize-nominated (2019) and Ivors Academy Award-winning (2018) Berlin/London-based composer, arranger and alto-saxophonist with a focus on creating multi-disciplinarily and genre-blending performance work in various audio-visual contexts. As a bandleader, she writes for and performs with her ten-piece ensemble seed. which features many top London-based improvising musicians. She is a composition graduate of the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where she studied with Andrew Poppy and Stephen Montague.
An in-demand composer for contemporary dance, film, visual-art and theatre, her production credits including the Park Avenue Armory NYC (Euphoria), National Theatre (Top Girls), the Globe Theatre (The Tempest), BalletBoyz (England on Fire and Bradley 4:18) and the Southbank Centre (Drew McConie's The Nutcracker). She has been commissioned by orchestras and ensembles such as London Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, BBC Philharmonic, London Contemporary Orchestra, Chineke! Orchestra, The Ligeti Quartet, Manchester Camerata and initiatives such as Renaud Capuçon’s Festival Nouveaux Horizons in Aix-en-Provence, France.
With a keen interest in audio-visual, installation and combined-genre ensemble performance, in 2021, Cassie was Artist-in-Resident for London Unwrapped festival at King’s Place. Her residency included the world premiere of Three Suns Suite for Aurora Orchestra featuring members of seed. Synthesis a night curated by Cassie of forward-reaching artists from London and echo an immersive installation created in collaboration with visual artist Anne Verheij with score featuring electronic soundscapes, field recordings and members of Chineke! Orchestra.
Her 2023 commission ‘gratitude’, accompanied by visuals by Birmingham & Belgrade-based artist GURIBOSH, was written for members of the London Contemporary Orchestra in combination with seed. and award-winning turntablist NikNak, and premiered to a sold-out Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre. It was released as part of her album 'gratitude' in March 2024 by Chicago-based label International Anthem.
Cassie is also very passionate about working as an educator and workshop leader with outreach being an integral part of her performance work. In 2020 and 2021, she arranged and conducted a community ensemble for EFG London Jazz Festival’s She is Jazz: Womxn Make Music performance at the Southbank Centre and King’s Place and as part of her 2023 Southbank Centre commission, led a series of workshops and invited students to attend the premiere of gratitude.
Upcoming
Cassie is currently writing new commissions for:
Ensemble Intercontemporain
Premiere: 27.05.2024, Barbican Centre, London
https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2025/event/cassie-kinoshi-x-ensemble-intercontemporain
GBSR Duo
Premiere: 22.02.2025, Wigmore Hall, London
https://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/202502221300
Credits of Note / Awards
Concert Hall: HEART (London Symphony Orchestra x seed., 2024), the colour of all things constant (BBC Philharmonic, Chethams School Choir, 2024) to the hibiscus for Rosie Bergonzi and Chineke! Orchestra (2024), blue skies, bluer seas for Julia Bullock and Philharmonia Orchestra (2023), gratitude for seed. , the London Contemporary Orchestra and turntablist NikNak (as commissioned by the Southbank Centre, 2023) grey cloud for string quartet and piano (as commissioned by Renaud Capuçon’s Festival Nouveaux Horizons 2022), Solaristic Precepts for chamber ensemble (as commissioned by London Sinfonietta, 2021) Fanfares (as commisisoned by the London Symphony Orchestra, 2022), Désordre: Sampled (as commissioned by the Ligeti Quartet, 2023)
Film, TV & Visual Art: MUNA (BBC Film, Short dir. Warda Mohamed), Noughts & Crosses (TV Series, Composer’s Assistant [Matthew Herbert], Season 2 Episodes 1-4), Euphoria (Julian Rosefeldt, Park Avenue Armory, NYC and EU Tour), Undercurrent (Anne Verheij, London Short Film Festival Best Experimental Film Nominee 2018) ONES, On An Empty Stomach (Anne Verheij, ICA Best Experimental Short Film Award Nominee 2017)
Dance: FIFTEEN MINUTES (Maxine Doyle, Nederlands Dans Theater), England on Fire (Balletboyz, Sadlers Wells), The Nutcracker (Drew McConie Company, Southbank Centre) Balletboyz: Bradley 4:18 (Deluxe Series, Sadlers Wells), Balletboyz: YES (short film)
Theatre: The Tempest (The Globe Theatre), Top Girls (National Theatre), The Little Prince adapted by Inua Ellams (Stratford Circus Arts Centre)
Awards and Nominations: Hyundai Mercury Award Nominee 2019, Paul Hamyln Foundation Composer Award 2021, National Dance Award Nominee 2024: Outstanding Creative Contribution (Balletboyz: England on Fire and Drew McConie’s The Nutcracker), Jazz FM UK Jazz Act of the Year Nominee 2020, Jazz FM Album of the Year Nominee 2020 (, 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)