Zara Nunn

Biography

Zara trained at the University of Glamorgan, Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and London College of Music.

In 2018 she commendably received her second funding award from the PRS for Music Foundation via their Open Fund for music creators for her debut cabaret concert Zara Nunn: Live at Zedel, which took place in July. With a four-piece band and six guest singers performing with her, she presented much-loved material from her back-catalogue as well as four World Premiere performances of new songs written especially for the event.

In 2017 she received her first coveted funding award from the PRS for music Foundation also via their Open Fund for music creators, which, with additional funding from Arts Council England and support from the Old Vic Lab enabled her to write, compose, orchestrate, musically direct, produce and showcase the first draft of her new show In Versions. This one-act musical was written during a five-week period in March 2017 and was subsequently followed by a week’s workshop with six actors and a final off-book industry showcase performance which also featured a six-piece band. The showcase took place at The Umbrella Rooms, Covent Garden.

Her other professional engagements include: Genesis Inc. (Hampstead Theatre); Cinderella (Oxford Playhouse – nominated for Best MD in the GB Panto Awards); Josephine (Bear Trap Theatre/The Egg, Theatre Royal Bath); The Tempest (Watford Palace Theatre); Yarico (London Theatre Workshop); Results Day (Rose Theatre, Kingston – short film); Alice in Wonderland, The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe (Royal Theatre (Royal & Derngate), Northampton); Aladdin, Dick Whittington, Much Ado About Nothing, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Cinderella, Jack & the Beanstalk, Sleeping Beauty (Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham); Elmer (Birmingham Stage Company); Arts Educational Schools; Arabian Nights, Alice, Peter Pan, The Doctor’s Daughter, Life of Pi, The Greek, Grimms’s Tales, An Artist & a Mariner, The Time Machine (Royal Central School of Speech & Drama); Beggar’s Opera, Babes in Arms (Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts); The MTA; Various Cures for Lonliness (Trinity College of Music at The Albany); Oldham Theatre Workshop, English Pocket Opera Company, National Youth Music Theatre and the International Schools Theatre Association.

In addition to her professional composing and musical direction engagements, Zara has worked extensively in music and theatre education and specialised in major large-scale devising and performance projects both in the UK and overseas.