Cassandra Smiles, a singer / songwriter from Sydney, has made she has already made a considerable impression on the Australian music scene, despite only having started playing guitar and songwriting 4 years ago.

After completing an Arts degree with honours at UNSW majoring in Philosophy and one year of a Law degree, Cassandra realised that becoming a lawyer would be a fate worse than death and decided that music was much more her cup of tea. If Philosophical Logic had taught her nothing else, it had at least taught her that, while she would probably never really understand Gödel’s completeness theorem (let alone provide a proof for it in the exam...geez...), she would really love to learn to play guitar!

And so, a few years later, that’s what she did. And after taking songwriting classes at the Bondi Wave Youth Music Workshop with her friend Georgina, to whom she will always be indebted for convincing her to go, Cassandra wrote her first songs, which she performed at a local songwriter night. Within a year, she was playing several gigs a week in venues throughout Sydney, including the Sandringham Hotel and the Basement.

In late 2006, Cassandra toured the US, playing venues across the east coast, including Pianos and a show at Mo Pitkin’s House of Satisfaction as part of CMJ Music Marathon in NYC, and was a regular at 169 Bar in NYC’s Lower East Side, playing each week with other folk, country and bluegrass bands.

Cassandra is a CMAA Australian College of Country Music graduate and was a Finalist in Toyota Star Maker 2008, Australia’s most successful and prestigeous country music talent search. She is recording this year with plans to release her debut album later in the year.