ABOUT

​​Rachel Epperly is a composer-performer, improviser, and performance artist active in the US and South Korea. Rachel's music spans classical, electronic, ambient, and experimental pop. Her work incorporates several mediums such as notated music, costume, improvisation, theater, text, and more. While her primary focus as a performer is experimental voice, she is also a classically-trained pianist and an accordionist. Cultural studies is at the center of Rachel's work; she uses performance to embody and imagine liberation from cultural norms related to capitalism, gender, and the climate crisis. 

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Recent projects include a solo narrative album I AM A PUMPJACK, commissioned by the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy; an hour and ten minute original solo opera SPIDERLILY, which premiered in 2023; a suit of armor made from 20,000 soda can tabs. 

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Rachel is a recipient of a US Fulbright Research Grant in Composition in Seoul, South Korea, during which she studied pansori performance and composition. She now studies jeongga. 

 

Rachel holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, and a BM in Music Composition from the University of Michigan with highest honors. Rachel has completed residencies with  Gabriela Lena Frank Academy of Music, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Art Omi:Music. Recent performances include excerpts from SPIDERLILY at National Sawdust through the Beth Morrison Project's NEXT GEN program, and with the Korean Contemporary National Dance Company.