She born in Simferopol, Russian Empire and was from a Jewish family.
Zara Levina studied piano in the Odessa Conservatory, which she passed with a gold medal.
She graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1932, where she had studied piano and composition.
In her early age, Zara Levina admired the composers Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Prokofiev, Beethoven and Schumann.
Both of her piano concertos have been recorded, as has her 1928 first violin sonata (by David Oistrakh).