Claire McKenzie

Biography

Claire McKenzie is an award-winning composer, orchestrator and musical director for theatre. Claire trained in Composition and Musical Direction at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow, where she received the Patrons Prize for Composition from the Royal Schools of Music, the Stevenson Scholarship and the Paul Kelly Prize for Drama. 

Since graduating Claire has composed original scores for numerous theatrical productions and has held the positions of Resident Composer at The Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh, Artistic Associate at Dundee Rep Theatre and most recently, has been made an Ambassador for Composition at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
Claire is one half of musical theatre writing team, Noisemaker, along with writer/lyricist Scott Gilmour. The pair have worked with a wide variety of companies and collaborators including the National Theatre of Scotland, Goodspeed Musicals, The Citizens Theatre, The American Musical Theatre Project, Dundee Rep, Royal Lyceum, Sheffield Crucible, Ruth Hendel Productions, Livewire Theatrical, LD Entertainment, National Youth Music Theatre and Selladoor Worldwide. During the last ten years working together their work has expanded from Scottish and UK audiences, to those in the US, where they now live and work.

Select Credits include;
SCOTS (Play Pie and A Pint/Oran Mor/ NYC Tartan Week ‘23), ATLANTIC: A SCOTTISH STORY (The Big Light Podcast Network - ARIAS Nominee 2022), OOR WULLIE (Selladoor Worldwide/Dundee Rep), LEGEND TRIPPERS (NYMT), HI MY NAME IS BEN (Goodspeed Musicals/NAMT Festival 2019), THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND HER LOVER (Faena Miami/Unigram), THE SNOW QUEEN (Dundee Rep/Citizens Theatre), , A CHRISTMAS CAROL (Dundee Rep), MY LEFT/RIGHT FOOT (National Theatre of Scotland - Fringe First/Herald Angel 2018), THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE (Winner Best Production at the Critics Awards Scotland), THE ILLIAD, FAITH HEALER, HEDDA GABLER, THE VENETIAN TWINS and THE BFG, The Royal Lyceum Edinburgh. THE 306: DAY (National Theatre of Scotland), LITTLE RED AND THE WOLF (Dundee Rep Theatre - UK Theatre Award 2016),

Upcoming projects include; A new commission from Goodspeed Musicals of Paul Gallico’s novella THE SNOW GOOSE. A new commission to adapt Susan Fletcher’s novel WITCHLIGHT for the stage by Idili Live.
HI, MY NAME IS BEN (recently optioned by Robert Ahrens and LD Entertainment) and CEILIDH, a new musical, which is optioned and in-development with Tony-award winning producers Barbara Whitman and Beth Grove. www.noisemaker.org.uk

Claire is currently Musical Director for the Immersive Great Gatsby, NYC.