Rachel has music in her blood, having grown up listening to classical and Dixieland music with her family. She began to play the trumpet at age nine. While she was in college in southwest Virginia, she developed an appreciation for fiddle and old-time music which led to her learning to play the clawhammer banjo. As a lifelong artist drawn to woodworking and craftsmanship, Rachel found herself fascinated by violin making when she met a co-worker's father who happened to be a luthier. She left a career in wildlife biology to attend the Violin Making School of America in Salt Lake City, Utah. There she studied under Charles Woolf, Sanghoon Lee, and Georg Meiwes. Rachel now builds violins, violas, and cellos out of her home shop in Driggs, Idaho. She also does repair work for Ferguson Violins in Rexburg, Idaho. She continues to play trumpet, violin, and banjo for pleasure, and loves to jam with her musician husband and young soon-to-be-musician daughter. |