Collection: Cassie Kinoshi

Born in 1993 and raised in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England. She attended Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, studying composition and graduating in 2015. She formed SEED Ensemble (now called seed.) in early 2016, shortly after graduating. She became known for her work with all-female jazz septet Nérija and Afrobeat jazz group Kokoroko, which she left in 2022 to focus on seed. She also leads six-piece band Brown Penny, which played at SXSW in Austin, Texas in early 2022. In 2017 she won the Parliamentary Jazz Award for Best Newcomer.

In 2018 she won the Ivors Academy Award (formerly BASCA, British Composer Award) for Best Jazz Composition for Large Ensemble for "Afronaut". From 2018 to 2019 she was Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer at Dundee Rep Theatre and was part of the London Symphony Orchestra Panufnik Scheme. In 2019 SEED Ensemble's debut album Driftglass was released via Jazz Re:freshed and was nominated for the Hyundai Mercury Prize. She won Jazz FM Breakthrough Act of the Year in 2019. In 2020 she was nominated for Jazz FM UK Jazz Act of the Year and Album of the Year. In 2021 she won the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Composer Award. In 2023 she premiered the commissioned work "gratitude" at a sold-out Southbank Centre Purcell Room. Written for seed., turntablist NikNak, and members of the London Contemporary Orchestra, with visuals by artist GURIBOSH, the piece was inspired by her mother's practice of keeping a gratitude book and focuses on mental health and mindfulness. The album gratitude was released in March 2024 via Chicago-based label International Anthem. She composes for theatre including the National Theatre, the Old Vic Theatre, and the London Symphony Orchestra. She works as an educator and workshop leader.