Cassie Kinoshi is a British jazz saxophonist, composer and bandleader who leads the group SEED Ensemble, who were nominated for a Mercury Prize award in 2019.

Biography

Kinoshi grew up in Welwyn Garden City,

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

, England, and attended Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (Composition) as well as

Tomorrow's Warriors Tomorrow's Warriors is a jazz music education and artist development organisation that was co-founded in 1991 by Janine Irons and Gary Crosby, committed to championing diversity, inclusion and equality across the arts through jazz, with a spec ...

. Kinoshi formed SEED Ensemble in 2016 as a way of celebrating Britain's diversity, and the group has been praised for its conscious look at British society and culture. SEED Ensemble combine jazz with West African and Caribbean music, and Kinoshi told Vinyl Factory: "It's important to me that I shine a light on political subject matter which is often disregarded by the masses and highlight what it means to exist as a young Black British citizen today." Kinoshi is also a member of the Afrobeat group Kokoroko, and the seven-piece jazz group Nérija' Her six-piece Brown Penny played at

SXSW South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...

in Austin, Texas, in early 2022, and is due to take part in the EFG London Jazz Festival in November 2022. In 2019, SEED Ensemble were nominated for a Mercury Prize award for their album ''Driftglass''. Kinoshi told DIY that she "screamed really high pitch and ran around in circles" when she heard about the nomination. The album received an 85% jump in sales as a result of the nomination. Kinoshi is also a composer who writes for theatre, including the National Theatre ('' Top Girls''), the Old Vic Theatre and the London Symphony Orchestra.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kinoshi, Cassie Alumni of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance British jazz alto saxophonists British jazz saxophonists British musical theatre composers British women composers Living people Tomorrow's Warriors alumni Women jazz saxophonists Year of birth missing (living people)