Zara Nunn

Education

Equipment

My Equipment/Kit: Final Cut Pro / X, Logic Pro, Macbook Pro / Laptop, Sibelius

I can use: Final Cut Pro / X, Logic Pro, Macbook Pro / Laptop, Sibelius

About me

I’m a professional Composer, Lyricist, Writer and Musical Director with 20 years worth of experience writing music/songs for theatre, screen, broadcast & media either to brief or by commission. In the music production/sound design field, I edit & produce high quality tracks, orchestrate, arrange and add or edit music to/for existing video projects. I license my production/bespoke library music for use in online, broadcast & media and am experienced across a wide range of platforms (Logic Pro X, Final Cut Pro, Sibelius). I also have extensive experience in education. In other fields, I offer fully-responsive custom web design/development using HTML5, CSS3, Bootstrap & more or Wordpress website design (using a theme of your choice, or a premium theme I can add as an extra). As a writer I work in proofreading, copywriting and I'm available for skilled administrative projects, such as design/formatting of resources/workbooks – useful if you distribute downloadable content. Whatever your project is, I look forward to hearing from you.

My Professional Theatre and Composing Biography in detail:

Zara is a Composer, Writer, Lyricist, Musical Director and Orchestrator. She trained at the University of Glamorgan, Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and London College of Music.

Most recently in 2019 she has been commissioned by The Canales Project and the University of Wolverhampton in partnership with the United Nations Decade of Women to write a song for the Hear Her Song initiative. Having received its world premiere in the States in May, Zara will perform the UK premiere of Santa Rosa Sunset at the gala performance in Wolverhampton in June.

Earlier this year, she completed work on a commission for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) who asked her to write five new pieces for percussion and piano accompaniment to be included in their next exam syllabus to be published in 2020.

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.
Additional skills:
Theatre & Performance Skills:

Composition (theatre, broadcast, production, choral/classical)
Lyric writing
Musical Direction (Keyboards), Violinist
Devised theatre & devised music for theatre
Community, applied, site-specific or site-responsive theatre
Working with actor-musicians (devised music and/or scored)
Vocal coaching
Singing for non-actors, non-performers

Production Skills:

Arranging
Orchestration
Backing track and/or recorded music production
Music to picture
Editing (sound, video)
Transcription
Industry awards:
PRS Foundation Open Fund For Music Creators 2018
For: Zara Nunn: Live at Zedel (A World Premiere Cabaret Performance)

PRS Foundation Open Fund For Music Creators 2017
For: In Versions (A New Musical). Awarded in partnership with Arts Council England with additional support from the Old Vic Lab for the writing, composing, orchestrating, workshopping and industry performance of my first full show.

Skills

Secondary Job Title	Music Direction
Job Titles	Music Director, Sound Operator / Engineer, Sound Designer, Music Producer, Composer, General Staff, Teacher, Music Production
Years in industry	6+ years
Musical Skills	Piano/Keyboards, Violin
Musical Style	A capella, Ambient, Avant-garde, Avant-garde jazz, Barbershop, Baroque, Beat, Bossa nova, Cabaret, Calypso, Carol, Celtic, Cha-cha-cha, Chamber, Chamber pop, Chillout, Classical, Close harmony, Combined Rhythm, Concerto, Experimental, Funk, Jazz, Swing, World