Cassie Kinoshi (UK)

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.

Followers of UK Jazz know Kinoshi from her previous work with seed. (including the Mercury Prize-nominated album Driftglass, released by jazz re:freshed in 2019), or as a former member of Kokoroko. But her compositional résumé also extends deeply into orchestral work for concert hall, contemporary dance, film, visual art, and theatre, with high profile collaborators including London Sinfonietta, Philharmonia Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra.

In March of 2023 Cassie Kinoshi premiered a commissioned suite of music in front of a sold out crowd at London’s Southbank Centre. She wrote the piece – gratitude – for her flagship large ensemble seed., in a special augmented formation that also featured turntablist NikNak and the London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO).

SEED.
seed. is a Hyundai Mercury Prize nominated ten-piece jazz ensemble that combines cinematic arrangements with jazz, inner-city London, West African and Caribbean influenced groove. seed. explores a blend of genres through original compositions and improvisation.