Company Secretary, Global Accounts and Sales Manager
For many years, Cassellah worked for British Telecom as a senior level national policy maker, heading up a large department reporting directly to a Deputy Director. After leaving BT, Cassellah established herself as a high-level independent consultant with clients including the House of Commons, the Bank of England, various bank head offices as well as pharmaceutical and oil companies.
Cassellah first met long-term partner Vic when she turned up at his Chiswick Reach Studios facility to lay down tracks with her band The Night Owls Hot Dance Orchestra in the late-1990s. Cassellah’s son Jon started Thermionic Culture with Vic but when he moved on to start his own company, Soundbox Creations, Jon passed over his responsibilities as company secretary to his mother and she has been managing our accounts and global sales ever since.
1920s music, fashion and design have long played an all-engrossing part in Cassellah’s life although she only started playing a musical instrument – the cornet and latterly trumpet– at the age of 48. She formed The Night Owls in 1997 after studying with legendary player Ivan ‘Buzz’ Truman and her ten-piece 1920s/30s hot dance orchestra has played numerous gigs everywhere from London to Chicago, with Vic often engineering the live sound with a smattering of Thermionic gear in tow. In fact, Vic first designed the Nightingale for Cassellah’s band to use during live performances.
Cassellah made a cameo appearance in an Edwyn Collins music video for 1997 single, ‘The Magic Piper (Of Love)’ as Edwyn has long been a big fan of The Night Owls and - trivia fans take note - Vic also guested on the same production wearing a goatskin Pan costume, previously worn by Status Quo! Cassellah adores melodic and toe-tapping music from the 1920s through to the early-‘30s and she has also published songs in that idiom. She now leads the Art Deco Night Owls in her spare time!