Clara Zornado

Clara Zornado is a musician, shapeshifter, and impassioned eccentric. They are the only steward of Lady Queen Paradise, an experimental folk music project that began in 2014.

After spending six years studying to be an opera singer, Clara dove away from institutions and academia, much preferring the privacy (and subsequent freedom) of the underground. Lady Queen Paradise or “LQP” is an intimate container they created to take themselves and their audience into their depths, far away from mainstream spotlights.

With vigor and presence, Clara writes songs to face change. Their delicate guitar work, wide spectrum vocals, and background in opera combine into a lyrically rich genre they like to call “ariacore.” Over a decade of sharing songs all around North America has blessed them with a modest cult following to which they are eternally indebted.

Clara graciously accepts this grant on behalf of Lady Queen Paradise. After spending all of of 2024-2025 workshopping a stream-of-consciousness stage show called Lady Queen Paradise The Opera, they look forward to shifting their focus so they may continue expanding their repertoire with new projects. Currently, Clara is developing a solo opera called Maiden Flower Everything, Please Don’t Die For Me.

In addition to operating Lady Queen Paradise, Clara enjoys playing guitar in the alt-rock duo Pasofinogait. They are also the webmaster of Public Universal Fantasy, a digital database and gallery that promotes mundane beauty and outsider art. Clara lives in Seattle.