Cassie Watson Francillon is producer, artist, activist and harpist based in New Orleans, Louisiana. She explores sonic futurism by way of folk, jazz & experimental electronic themes on harp. A multifaceted performer, she plays both traditional and innovative settings alike for both original and commissioned music. Recent activations she has created, band-lead and produced include “Consortium” collaborative black sonic technology (2022-4), “Lanati” liberation of acoustic sound for well-being in a public environment as nature (2024), and movements for Ron Bechet’s From the Storms of Our Souls (2025).

Active since 2006, in a self-initiated journey of harp discovery and performance, she has studied under harpists including Gabriella Pinto, Brandee Younger, Mia Theodoratus and Patrice Fisher. Cassie has served on the board of the New Orleans Chapter of the American Harp Society and taught and served as the Assistant Producer of the annual New Orleans Jazz and Pop Harp Weekend. She produced of the Sirens in the Twilight Music Series listening room for femme/non-binary musicians and was the principal harpist in 2019 new age opera: The Coronation, at the New Orleans Airlift Music Box Village.

Her solo album Luna Nuda was released in 2019. In 2020, Cassie released the acoustic solo album this appears to disappear, which earned her a fellowship with indie-label Joyful Noise Records. She played in the futuristic trio Shakespeare & The Blues and co-produced their 2021 release e.g.: Rhapsodic, recorded at Mark Bingham’s Nina Hwy Studio in Henderson, Louisiana. Her additional releases include KāFOU (2025), Suite (2025), Lanati Vol. 1 (2025) and Bardo (2026) featured on Bandcamp Daily.

Venues of note span the Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans, the Kennedy Center, the Met Museum, the Guggenheim, Studio BE, the Cabildo, Cathedral at Peter and Paul, New Orleans African American Museum and the Marigny Opera House where she directed, produced and performed the sold-out production the Eternal Harp of Björk in 2018.

Cassie has been sought-after for her unique session work and live productions alongside John Cameron Mitchell,  Helen Gillet, Tank and the Bangas with Norah Jones, Irreversible Entanglements, Ben LaMar Gay, Isaiah Collier, Val Jeanty, Angel Bat Dawid, Madame Gandhi, People Museum, & Charm Taylor to name a few. She was selected by Prospect Arts Group to conceptualize and perform a diasporic piece with Guardians of the Flame Black Masking Indians, opening for Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah Christian Scott at the P.5 Gala of 2022. Cassie is a fellow of Grammy and Tony Award-winning NEA Jazz Master Dee Dee Bridgewater’s Woodshed Network for Women in Jazz.

With inimitable grit, tone, awareness and groove, Cassie crafts a narrative that connects past and future, existing and broken ancestral ties. Her sound and journey truly reflect links to Haitian lineage with Black American- diasporic roots, crafting a modern legacy of sonic liberation, weaving weighted threads in mid air.