Rebecca Hazard

Biography

British | Composer | Arranger | Songwriter | librettist Remixer | Music Producer | Zirenz | Singer | Vocal Coach | Radio DJ

Rebecca (Bex) Hazard of the Duo Zirenz started her music journey at the age of 10 composing her first choral piece for her school choir for a BBC carol competition. Bex continued song writing playing guitar and piano and went on to win an opportunity to record and perform at BBC Pebble Mill Studios Birmingham. Her vocal training began when she joined the Award Winning Cantamus Girls Choir under the direction of Pamela Cook MBE former head of singing at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. 

Rebecca Hazard in 1989 won an entrance scholarship to study at the prestigious The Royal Academy of Music London and obtained both an Undergraduate with (Hons) in voice & performance and Postgraduate with (Merit) in Opera voice from the RAM as well as winning numerous prizes and awards while studying at the RAM including the Early Music Prize, the Arthur Burcher Memorial Prize, the Grisi and Mario Prize for singers the Alfred Alexander Award & Paton Award and the John Ogden Scholarship from Mansfield Arts Council. She was vocal coached in Opera by Yvonne Minton OBE, Josephine Veasey CBE, Dame Felicity Palmer DBE and contemporary pop and rock, musical theatre with Anne- Marie Speed and Mary Hammond. Bex as an Undergraduate at the RAM also studied composition with both Roy Teed and Nigel Clark and for her postgraduate final recital she composed an avant-garde style song circle for humpback whale, contralto (low) voice, piano and violin called Songs of the sea which received accolade from the former RAM professor Mary Thomas who was a contemporary music songstress for the likes of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.

As the duo Zirenz Bex Hazard & Cat Llewelyn, kicked off their career together winning an Honourable Mention Award from the world renowned John Lennon Song writing competition USA in 2003. Over the last decade as Trance producers and vocalists Zirenz have hit #no.1 and Top #10 successes in the iTunes, Deezer and Beatport Charts with their vocal trance singles and album releases.

Zirenz music has been influenced by a plethora of composers so here are just a few names that are important to mention MozartPucciniHolst  MorriconeWilliams, Vangelis, Zimmer, Elfman, Armin Van Buuren, David Guetta, Max Martin, Pet shop boys, Krftwerk and Jean-Michel Jarre have all made an impact on the music of Zirenz. In 2021 their track named “Edge of Space” was part of Trance music history too when included in A State Of Trance All Time TOP #1000 list by the five-time Ranked World no.#1 DJ Armin van Buuren.

As Radio DJ’s Zirenz for several years hosted the Afterworld Sessions Radio show focussing on the best of Trance music which broadcast weekly on Romanian Radio station Cluj-Napoca 95,6FM and syndicated to several digital radio stations broadcasting from UK,USA ,France, Holland, Greece, Ireland and Mexico to thousands of listeners each week. 

In 2013 Bex Hazard signed a Worldwide distribution deal with Believe Digital for her Afterworld Recordings Label. Then in 2016 Llewelyn & Hazard Zirenz signed a Publishing Plus Sync deal with Simon Platz and his Award Winning Bucks Music Group ltd London and began to experiment on new musical directions and formulated the pOpera project

Over the last several years Zirenz, Bex Hazard and Cat Llewelyn have been working on the “pOpera project” a project that brings together all of Zirenz music diversity and Knowledge which they have acquired and developed over the last 25 years. With their Classical music training, their music production skills, DJ editing and mixing skills with their love and understanding of Singing, playing and DJing many different styles and genres of music including Classical Opera, Music theatre, Trance, EDM and Pop Zirenz have been developing a way to re-imagine the music of Purcell to Puccini and more crafting new fresh arrangements with some additional composition and lyrical or libretto content.

Spring term 2024 Llewelyn & Hazard began creating prototype teaching packs for their pOpera project Opera Arias with SAB chorus and these prototype works are currently being rehearsed for internal performances for the Summer term 2024 at Leicester City based Addict Dance AcademyBTEC (Musical Theatre) courses. The principal aim is to develop new innovative vocal repertoire for BTEC performing arts courses in the UK to bringing the world of Opera to a new diverse contemporary range of performance students who would not have considered singing Opera as either a soloists or chorus member before and will begin to give them the chance to start to explore the amazing world of Opera in some cases for the very first time. 

The development of the pOpera project is ongoing and Zirenz have plans to work on several full OPERAs as well as continuing to add more well know works to their pOpera project catalogue. Zirenz music is currently published by Bucks Music Group Ltd London

Composer Website