Rachel C. Walker

Rachel C. Walker writes poetic, timbre-sensitive works drawing from her ongoing immersion in and research on Chinese folk music, musical time, and language. She engages in long-term collaborations with living writers, exploring the philosophical connections between transcription and translation within abstract musical syntaxes.

Her music has been performed during Festival Mujeres en la Música Nueva, PASIC, Kuandu Arts Festival, Svensk Musikvår, Sound of Stockholm, Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik, and others. Recent commissions and collaborations include pieces for Trio recherche, Trio Abstrakt, Ensemble Adapter, Ictus, Spуłdzielnia Muzyczna, airborne extended and Trio Klangspektrum. She has ongoing projects with the poets Autumn Tsai, Ruan Xuefang, Zheng Xiaoqiong and Nadeem Al-Aloosi.

As the recipient of multiple research grants for China and Taiwan, Rachel has studied and written about traditional and contemporary music, while simultaneously composing dynamic new works for Chinese and Western instruments. Her writings have been published by NewMusicBox and Southwest China Normal University Press, as well as presented in guest lectures at the Korean Electro-Acoustic Music Society Annual Conference, Harvard University, Australian National University, McGill University, Hong Kong Baptist University, Shandong University and the Central Conservatory of Music.

Her work has been supported by ArtsWave, Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy, Forschungszentrum Musik und Gender Hannover, the New Music USA Creator Development Fund and the University of Cincinnati Research Council Undergraduate Research Fellowship. She has held residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity and the Britten-Pears Foundation. She is the Artistic Director of the new music and media collective neuMERZ.