Biography
Rachel is a flautist and lecturer based near Manchester, in the small town of New Mills on the edge of the Peak District. Rachel currently lectures at the Royal Northern College of Music, the University of Sheffield, and the Open University. Rachel is an active orchestral musician and soloist, particularly in demand as a piccolo player, and teaches at universities and schools in the region and privately from home.
Rachel plays in a busy Flute & Piano Duo with Jemima Palfreyman, giving recent recitals in St Martin-in-the-fields, Ripon Cathedral, Manchester Cathedral, the Bridgewater Introducing series, Whitworth Art Gallery and the Buxton Festival Fringe (for which the Duo won Fringe Awards two years running). The Duo also have a developing programme of outreach work. Other performances as soloist include the Chorlton Arts Festival, British Flute Society Convention 2010 (as a member of the Nicholson Flute Trio), Wales Millennium Centre, Norwegian Church Cardiff and St Chrysostom's Manchester. She has appeared as concerto soloist with the VACO Orchestra, and regularly takes solo spots with the Lancashire Artillery Band, as a concerto soloist in concerts and as a featured musician within marching displays.
As an orchestral musician Rachel appears regularly with orchestras around the country including the Cheshire Sinfonia, Amadeus Orchestra, Apollo Sinfonia and the orchestras of numerous musical societies around the north-west. While at college she held the position of Principal Flute with the RWCMD Symphony and Opera Orchestras and was selected for a side-by-side wind project and concert with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Rachel is also an Army Reserve Musician, playing with the Lancashire Artillery Band, providing musical support to the British Army from Bolton to the Falklands.
Rachel's lecturing is characterised by its breadth, versatility and interdisciplinarity. At the RNCM, as a Lecturer in Academic Studies, Rachel leads the undergraduate module strand 'Music in Culture: Nineteenth-Century Music', and has contributed sessions from undergraduate to PhD level covering material from the 16th century to the present. Rachel is an Associate Lecturer for the Open University on the module A113 Revolutions, which looks at the Reformation, the French Revolution, the aftermath of World War I, and the 1960s, from the the perspectives of History, Music, Philosophy and Religious Studies. Rachel is also Humanities Tutor for the University of Sheffield's Foundation Degree Programme, leading the module 'Introduction to the Humanities' and contributing to activities across the curriculum.
Rachel's PhD, supported by an AHRC Studentship and undertaken at the Royal Northern College of Music,
investigated musical life in Manchester in the nineteenth century. It demonstrated how music contributed to the formation of identity, community and new models of citizenship in the word's first industrial city. This research was interdisciplinary, drawing not only on musicology and cultural history but also on sociology,
anthropology and urban studies. A book based on the PhD, titled Music and the Creation of Social Identity during the Industrial Revolution: Manchester, 1819-1857, is forthcoming with Routledge.
Rachel studied flute with Richard Davis, Andrew Nicholson and Peter Lloyd, Piccolo with Nicola Dowton, and Baroque Flute with Katy Bircher. Rachel holds a Masters in Flute Performance from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, prior to that gaining a Bachelor degree in Music from the University of Manchester. Her studies have been supported by awards from the Solti Foundation, EMI Music Sound Foundation, Laura Ashley Foundation, South Square Trust and Women's Career's Foundation.
Rachel plays in a busy Flute & Piano Duo with Jemima Palfreyman, giving recent recitals in St Martin-in-the-fields, Ripon Cathedral, Manchester Cathedral, the Bridgewater Introducing series, Whitworth Art Gallery and the Buxton Festival Fringe (for which the Duo won Fringe Awards two years running). The Duo also have a developing programme of outreach work. Other performances as soloist include the Chorlton Arts Festival, British Flute Society Convention 2010 (as a member of the Nicholson Flute Trio), Wales Millennium Centre, Norwegian Church Cardiff and St Chrysostom's Manchester. She has appeared as concerto soloist with the VACO Orchestra, and regularly takes solo spots with the Lancashire Artillery Band, as a concerto soloist in concerts and as a featured musician within marching displays.
As an orchestral musician Rachel appears regularly with orchestras around the country including the Cheshire Sinfonia, Amadeus Orchestra, Apollo Sinfonia and the orchestras of numerous musical societies around the north-west. While at college she held the position of Principal Flute with the RWCMD Symphony and Opera Orchestras and was selected for a side-by-side wind project and concert with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Rachel is also an Army Reserve Musician, playing with the Lancashire Artillery Band, providing musical support to the British Army from Bolton to the Falklands.