Rachel has established herself as a leading interpreter of the Baroque and Classical music periods
She was the first woman to be awarded the prestigious Royal Academy of Music/Kohn Foundation Bach Prize in October 2015, won Gramophone Artist of the Year 2018 and was the Ambassador for REMA’s Early Music Day 2020. A creative programmer, Rachel is the founder and Artistic Director of Brecon Baroque Festival and her ensemble Brecon Baroque.
Following an exciting and innovative new collaboration, Guardian Angel, with the vocal ensemble VOCES8, Rachel was thrilled to be one of the Artists in Residence at Wigmore Hall throughout the 2019/2020 season. The series featured Rachel in all-Bach performances as a soloist and with Brecon Baroque. Alongside this, Rachel and Christopher Glynn joined forces for the first time in recordings and performances of the Beethoven sonatas, and the world premiere recording and performances of three previously unfinished Mozart sonatas which have been completed by Royal Academy of Music Professor Timothy Jones.
As a director and soloist, Rachel has enjoyed countless collaborations including with Robert Levin, Jordi Savall, Masaaki Suzuki, Kristian Bezuidenhout, VOCES8, Robert Hollingworth and I Fagiolini, European Union Baroque Orchestra, English Concert, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Academy of Ancient Music, Holland Baroque Society, Tafelmusik (Toronto), the Handel and Haydn Society, Berkeley Early Music and Oregon Bach Festival.
A dedicated educator, she holds the Micaela Comberti Chair for Baroque Violin at the Royal Academy of Music and the Jane Hodge Foundation International Chair in Baroque Violin at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. She has a relationship with The Juilliard School in New York.
Image credit: Theresa Pewal