about
Zahrah Hutton is a guitarist, artist, and composer from London, based in Birmingham.
In both her compositional and visual practices, Zahrah’s work explores repetition and balance within structures, often drawing on patterns found in nature or telegraphy and codes, th e arrangement of forms, and the relationship between form and sound. From August 2024 to January 2025, Zahrah was one of two Artists in Residence at Stirchley Printworks, a contemporary print studio in South Birmingham. She has performed her work at Flatpack Film Festival, CODA Festival, and Centrala. Zahrah is a Britten Pears Young Artist 2025-26, for composition, alternative performance, and performance art (CAPPA).
Zahrah is a member of the Mela Guitar Quartet, with whom she has performed at venues across the UK, including at Church Stretton Arts Festival, Kew Gardens Nash Sessions, the Jago, Dalston with through the noise, and live on BBC Radio 3's In Tune. The quartet recently released an album of original arrangements, ‘Overtures & Dances’, with contemporary classical label TRPTK, and completed an eight-week tour of America and Canada as winners of the Guitar Foundation of America international ensemble prize. This tour included the US premiere of Anthony Burgess' Concerto Grosso for four guitars and orchestra with the Stanford Philharmonia at the Bing Concert Hall, California.
Zahrah has electric guitar with the Listening Project, and in the house band for Tell It to the Music, a free improvisation night responding to spoken word. In 2025 she was selected to participate in the guitar/electric guitar studio at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt. With theatre company ‘A Book of Portraits’, Zahrah has performed and improvised on acoustic guitar, lute, and banjo in multiple community music and theatre events, including an immersive set of folk tales, a wassail, and an homage to the 1575 arts festival for Elizabeth I, performed at Kenilworth Castle.
Zahrah graduated from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire with first-class honours in music performance in 2023. In her second year she was awarded the Guitar Prize. Zahrah is also trained in the Kodály Method, holding Level 8 Kodály Musicianship.