Cassie Kinoshi Releases New Philharmonic Jazz Album ‘gratitude’ With Her Flagship Ensemble seed.
PRAISE FOR International Anthem
“A four-part suite themed on the search for optimism in the daily grind...finds sweeping strings juxtaposed with angular brass and a strong pulse.”
“Stellar...It’s remarkable stuff — larger-than-life grand, but also somehow intimate and personal.”
“A stellar instrumentalist who continually sits at the forefront of groundbreaking composition.”
“A saxophonist at the epicentre of London's thriving jazz scene...Kinoshi is big on improvisation and bigger still on weaving her politics into her work.”
TRACKLIST
i
ii
interlude i
iii sun through my window
interlude ii
iv
Smoke in the Sun
gratitude is out now, buy/stream it here.
Today, Mercury Prize-nominated (2019) and Ivors Academy Award-winning composer, arranger, and alto saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi releases the new album gratitude with her flagship ensemble seed. The album features Kinoshi and her band alongside turntablist NikNak and the London Contemporary Orchestra. It’s Kinoshi’s debut release for Chicago-based label International Anthem, her first with seed. since 2019’s Mercury Prize-nominated Driftglass, and is now available in stores worldwide. Listen to gratitude here.
Berlin and London-based Kinoshi is also known as a former member of Kokoroko; and even beyond her work as leader of seed., her compositional résumé extends deeply into orchestral work for concert hall, contemporary dance, film, visual art, and theater, with high profile collaborators including London Sinfonietta, Philharmonia Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra.
Listen to an interview with Kinoshi over at Bandcamp.
That depth of experience is on full display on gratitude, with the textural and dynamic flexibility of her large ensemble covering musical ground from groove-focused modal melancholia to anthemic brass and string themes. Striking upon first listen and even richer on repeat visits, gratitude scores the soul of contemporary Black London with philharmonic craftwork in the tradition of legendary jazz arrangers like Mary Lou Williams, Oliver Nelson, and Carla Bley.
Kinoshi says: “gratitude was written as a means of guiding my own healing. My mother told me that she keeps a gratitude book where she writes one thing, no matter how big or small, every day that helps to re-focus her mind on practicing gratitude. The examples that she gave were seeing the flowers that she’d recently planted in her garden bloom and a kaleidoscope of butterflies that she saw flitting about a tree in her garden. I find this way of looking for the small moments of beauty in everyday life a beautiful way of reframing one’s experience of life and making sure to celebrate the communities, people, natural world and experiences that bring me joy. At this point in my artistic career, highlighting the often overlooked subject of mental health and what it means to move towards creating healthy, positive and introspective practices in regards to both understanding and regulating one’s own mental health is of the utmost importance to me.”
Kinoshi announced the album last month with Movements “i” & “ii,” which cover the exposition and initial peaks of the suite, vividly encapsulating the spectrum of Kinoshi’s composition. Movement “ii” is also highlighted by an electric guitar solo from Shirley Tetteh. Listen to Movements “i” & “ii” here.
Her 2023 commission gratitude, accompanied by visuals by Birmingham and 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.
Earlier this month, Kinoshi returned to the Barbican for her biggest headlining show to date, in celebration of International Women’s Day. Kinoshi revisited and performed the full gratitude suite, again with visual art accompaniment from GURIBOSH; and she also premiered a brand new composition, commissioned by Serious. Her new piece, which also features seed., NikNak, and the London Contemporary Orchestra, took inspiration from women’s role in British music history in the Between the Wars Era.
ABOUT CASSIE KINOSHI
Cassie Kinoshi 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 concert hall, contemporary dance, film, visual art, and theater, 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, London Contemporary Orchestra, 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.
Kinsoshi first entered the International Anthem sphere, publicly, in November 2022 on stage at London’s Barbican Centre, alongside Angel Bat Dawid, Theon Cross and Asher Gamedze, as part of the label’s CHICAGOxLONDON co-presentation with London Jazz Festival.
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