Rachel was a member of the Metro String Quartet from 1994-2000, collaborating with Menahem Pressler, Shauna Rolston and Laurence Lesser. She joined the Aviv Quartet in 2002. Grand prize winner of the Melbourne and Bordeaux competitions, the quartet tours regularly on five continents, playing in halls such as the Auditorium du Louvre, Zurich Tonhalle, Wigmore Hall, the Library of Congress in Washington DC, Baxter Hall in Cape Town, St Lawrence Centre in Toronto, and at festivals such as Montpellier, Aix-en-Provence, Lockenhaus, Davos, Colmar and Oistrakh. The quartet has released cds on Naxos and Dalia Classics and celebrated its 10th anniversary with a complete Shostakovich cycle at the 2007 Verbier Festival. Recent collaborations include performances with Jorg Widmann, Boris Berman, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, James Tocco, Boris Petrushansky, Nicolas Baldeyrou and Anton Dressler. The quartet has also given masterclasses, coaching and outreach performances in the United States, Israel, South Africa and Canada, including at the University of Toronto.
Born in Edmonton, Rachel began cello studies at the age of three with Diana Nuttall. She spent formative years with Kristl Armstrong at the Vancouver Academy of Music, where she made her solo debut with the Vancouver Academy Chamber Orchestra at the age of 12. After moving to Ontario, Rachel attended the Royal Conservatory of Music and received the Gold Medal for her Associate Diploma, studying with Susan Gagnon and David Hetherington. She received a BM from the University of Toronto with Shauna Rolston, an MM with honours from the New England Conservatory with Laurence Lesser, and a solo diploma from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with Dmitri Ferschtman. Rachel attended Orford, Banff, Holland Music Sessions, Ravinia, Prussia Cove, Scotiafest, Proquartet, the Juilliard Quartet Seminar and the Verbier Academy, for masterclasses with Boris Pergamenschikow, Frans Helmerson, Lynn Harrell, Janos Starker, Aldo Parisot, Gregor Horsch, Valentin Berlinsky, Valentin Erben, Henry Meyer and Walter Levin.
Currently based in Toronto, Rachel has given guest masterclasses at the University of Toronto and QuartetFest at Wilfred Laurier University. She is principal cellist for Via Salzburg, a chamber music series led by Mayumi Seiler, collaborating with artists such as Richard Hosford, Neil Deland, George Gao and Eliot Fisk. Rachel recently joined piano quartet Ensemble Made in Canada, winners of CBC Galaxie Rising Stars Award, and named among "80 women to watch" in the 80th anniversary edition of Chatelaine magazine in May 2008. She also plays duo and trio concerts with her sister, violinist Akemi Mercer. The sisters formed the Mercer Trio in 2007 (with Toca Loca pianist and Toronto Music Gallery curator Gregory Oh) and will begin a complete Haydn trio cycle for the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society in April 2009. Rachel also appears in Israel as the Shiraz Trio with her Aviv Quartet colleague, violinist Evgenia Epshtein.
Rachel plays the 1824 McConnell Nicolaus Gagliano cello generously on loan from the Canada Council for the Arts.
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