Biography
Rachel is a flautist, researcher 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. Alongside her academic teaching and research, Rachel is an active orchestral musician and soloist.
Rachel plays in a Flute & Piano Duo with Jemima Palfreyman, giving recitals in venues including 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 undertake a programme of outreach work in schools, hospitals and other institutions. 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. Rachel has appeared as concerto soloist with orchestras in Ripon, Shrewsbury and Belfast 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 has played with ensembles including the Cheshire Sinfonia, Amadeus Orchestra, Apollo Sinfonia, orchestras at the Buxton Festival, 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.
Flautist
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 were 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 Flute & Piano Duo with Jemima Palfreyman, giving recitals in venues including 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 undertake a programme of outreach work in schools, hospitals and other institutions. 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. Rachel has appeared as concerto soloist with orchestras in Ripon, Shrewsbury and Belfast 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 has played with ensembles including the Cheshire Sinfonia, Amadeus Orchestra, Apollo Sinfonia, orchestras at the Buxton Festival, 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.
Researcher
Rachel is researching (British) military musicians and modern conflict, the history of music in (English) prisons nineteenth-century British flute culture, light music and historical recordings. She is currently completing a Share Our Sounds research residency (British Library / RNCM / Manchester Archives+) evaluating the RNCM's archive of student recordings.
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. It uses neglected archives to explore the emergence of a distinctive musical culture in Manchester, investigating the establishment of a variety of institutions and societies, from glee clubs to Mechanics’ Institutes. 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.
Lecturer
Rachel lectures from Foundation to PhD level at multiple universities. Her teaching is characterised by its breadth, versatility and interdisciplinarity.
At the RNCM, as a Lecturer in Music, 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', which begins in week 1 with the question 'What are The Humanities?' and concludes twelve weeks later with the question 'What is humanity?'
Miscellaneous!
Rachel's 'portfolio career' has been highly varied!
Rachel is an active member of the Kinder Mountain Rescue Team. She has a background in ultrarunning and high-altitude mountaineering, undertaking expeditions with the military to rarely-climbed peaks in Peru and Nepal, and she worked for several years as a rock climbing instructor.
Rachel has previously taught flute and piano in schools and privately, to students ranging in age from 4 to 70, alongside teaching Wider Opportunities classes in primary schools on flute, clarinet and violin. She has also spent time employed as a support worker for adults with learning disabilities.