Miss. Rachel Smith

Rachel Smith is a passionate violin and viola player with a wide range of experience in orchestra and small ensembles, solo performance, and teaching.  Born in North Carolina in 1998, she grew up in a military family and has lived all over the United States, including Hawaii, where her artistic journey began with violin lessons at the age of 8 with Sheryl Shohet, a member of the Hawaii Symphony. 

At the age of 18, Rachel accepted her first teaching position as the violin and viola instructor for the SKIESUnlimited program at the U.S. Army CYS (Child, Youth, and School Services) at Patch Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany. In her four years teaching for the Army CYS, she worked with students ages 4 to adult and had the opportunity to experiment with her curriculum, methodology, and pedagogical skills, and build her personal vision for her studio. She was greatly influenced by her experiences in cultivating teacher-to-family relationships with the incredibly diverse and fluctuating military community in Germany.

An avid orchestral musician, Rachel has served as concertmaster, principle and co-principal violinist, and principal and co-principal violist in various orchestras since 2008.  While living in Germany for the past 8 years, she performed as the concertmaster of the Stuttgart Youth Symphony Orchestra (JuSO), principal violist of the Stuttgart Youth Chamber Orchestra, and also served as principal and co-principal violist of the Baden-Württemberg State Youth Orchestra (LJO-BW).  She was also a member of the Stuttgart Conservatory Symphony and the Young Philharmonia of Northern Germany, and was a substitute violist for the Black Forest Chamber Orchestra in December of 2018.  Through these various orchestras, Rachel has performed with members of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, and the Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn, and taken concert tours throughout Germany, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, China, and Australia.

Since her first experiences in string quartet, Rachel as developed a deep love for chamber music and small-ensemble playing.  She is constantly inspired by the art created by the cooperation of a few artists striving toward the same goal.  In 2017, Quartet Luminoso, her first string quartet, won 1st prizes at the regional and state levels of the German Jugend Musiziert Competition, and 2nd prize at the national level, and her viola duo also won 1st prizes at the regional and state levels and 3rd prize at the national level.  Also in 2017, she performed Søren Nils Eichberg’s concerto grosso Endorphin as the string quartet violist with the LJO.  Later in 2018, she won 1st prizes at all levels of Jugend Musiziert with her Mendelssohn Octet, which also went on to win the WDR3 Klassikpreis der Stadt Münster after being invited to participate in Jugend Musiziert’s competition for special prizes.  In 2019 and 2020, she continued to perform projects as the violist in the LJO string quartet.  Currently, she performs chamber music regularly with musicians from the Eastman School of Music.

Early in her musical journey, Rachel fell in love with baroque and renaissance music and historical instruments.  In 2019, she joined the Baden-Württemberg State Youth Baroque Orchestra as a violist, and had her first experiences with baroque ensemble playing, gut strings, and baroque bows with members of the renowned Freiburger Barockorchester.  Since coming to Eastman School of Music, she has expanded to the baroque violin and now plays regularly with Eastman’s Collegium baroque orchestra and as a violinist in various baroque ensembles, and has participated in a masterclass with baroque violin professor Cynthia Roberts of the Julliard School.

Rachel has studied violin with Sheryl Shohet, Ruth Marie Ballance, Marcos Kreutzer, Julius Calvelli-Adorno, and Gabriele Turck.  She has studied viola with Lydia Bach at the Stuttgart Music School and Prof. Gunter Teuffel at the Stuttgart State University of Music and Performing Arts, where she attended as a viola performance major from 2018-2020.  Rachel transferred to the Eastman School of Music in early 2021, where she currently studies with Masumi Per Rostad.  She has also performed in masterclasses with Prof. Roland Glassl from the University of Music and Performing arts in Munich.