Zanna

Zanna was born in San Diego, CA and raised on an Orange County street that means “platinum.” Her parents signed Zanna up for piano lessons at age four, when they noticed that she was often running from the TV to her mother’s piano to play the commercials she had just heard. She soon gave up the slow-paced lessons for soccer practice, but it was obvious she hadn’t given up music, as she became the youngest performer at her school talent show the next year, and went on to take the lead roles in her school musicals. At summer camp in her early teens, Zanna became fascinated with the guitar during the camp sing-alongs, and so she snatched one of the chord songbooks when no one was looking and took it home to teach herself how to play. From that point on, she often found herself sitting on the bathroom carpet, furiously scribbling lyrics into her journal.

After being kicked out of Catholic high school one semester before graduation, she immediately headed north to San Francisco. She became involved in the underground rave scene, and even threw a few raves in warehouses while she studied philosphy at San Jose State and Music Business at San Francisco State. She left the bay area for Boston and the Berklee College of Music, and quickly started performing at local Boston and New York venues.  After graduation, Zanna took Route 66 back to California with plans to start her musical career at home in LA. But only a few days later, she scrapped her LA plans, and flew back to Boston to continue work on her album and make music with her band, eventually moving into a house of musicians.

She sang on albums for folk artist Gabrielle Louise (Journey, Around in Circles); she sang, played bass, and arranged on two albums for jazz artist Mike Greensteen (Big Man on the Shelf, Hang in There Pop Skwurl); she added vocals and songwriting to the albums of Dwight & Nicole (soundtracks for Nikita, The Forgotten, Missing, The Cleaner); and she sang for Nicole Nelson (The Voice), Berklee professors Dan Bowden and Gwen Leathers, and Auditorium. She additionally employed her speaking voice as the “Voice of God” for Reebok and similar voice over work.  

Zanna also toured with “Pink Voyd,” (Pink Floyd cover band), for which she was featured on “Great Gig in the Sky,” and “Led to Zep” (Led Zeppelin cover band). She also sang for Jerry Bennett Entertainment’s “The Sultans,” (High-Level General Business Band), with “Alley Blues,” which won the 2008 Boston Blues Challenge, with Four Piece Suit (soundtracks for Sex and the City, Dexter) and Woody Giessmann (of The Del Fuegos).  She played keys and vocals for the comedic “World Gone Crazy Band,” was the lead singer for the world music-influenced band, “Bangalore” (West African drumming and North Indian Classical Music, blended with American roots and jazz), and she played percussion and lead female vocals for “Music School Dropouts” (High Energy Rock/Pop/Dance Band) at private parties, bars, and night clubs in the New England area.

Zanna also worked as the Assistant Engineer and Production Manager at Rear Window Studios in Brookline, MA; recent notable album credits include working with Yo-yo Ma and Carlos Santana (Guitar Heaven).  Zanna is often composing and performing her own music on 88.5 KSBR or the LIVE 365 Channel “Women of Substance.”  She has been honored by the Billboard World Song Contest and was invited to perform at Berklee’s Songwriter Night, but has been recently been playing in local Southern California venues. 

Zanna is still working on her debut album, “Snapshots from a Sanctuary,” which features: Dave Mattacks, Milt Reder, Bruce Bears, Eguie Castrillo, Scott Aruda, John Aruda, Paul Ahlstrand, Jeff Galindo, Dean Cassell, Mark Hickox, Jeremy Carter, Manami Morita, Andrei Matorin, Uziel Colón, Tolga Sursal, Calin Peters, Alan Uhler, Chris Primeau, and Josh Cuadra. Until it is fully released, you can hear Zanna’s music on any of her websites, on 88.5 KSBR or the LIVE 365 Channel “Women of Substance,” OR you can catch her regularly performing around local Los Angeles venues.