Rachel Beetz
About this Artist
As a composer and sound artist, Rachel Beetz considers sound as touch and is particularly influenced by natural and mechanical environments, the life of objects, interpersonal collaboration, and deep listening. Combining experimental field recordings and electronically modified flutes, her works examine community, environmentalism, and women’s work through sound, textiles, and lighting. Beetz’s sound projects have taken her from a sunless winter fjord to the mountains of Southern California and empty grain bins of the American Midwest. She has held residencies in art houses in rural Iceland and at the Women’s Center for Creative Work in Santa Fe, NM; the Los Feliz Charter School for the Arts in Los Angeles; the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida; and the Walden School Creative Musicians retreat. Her projects have been featured in concert halls and galleries in Australia, Iceland, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
As a flutist, Rachel Beetz plays “elegantly” (The Washington Post) while “evoking the roar of prehistoric animals” (San Diego Union-Tribune). She performs music by living composers and works from the last century. She has premiered over 75 works in the last 15 years, including operas by Laure M. Hiendl, Ellen Reid, and Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs in addition to chamber works by Richard Barrett, Liza Lim, Alvin Lucier, Celeste Oram, Yiheng Yvonne Wu, and Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi. Beetz performs with ensembles that share her values, such as International Contemporary Ensemble, Third Coast Percussion, Bozzini Quartet, Wild Up, the Martha Graham Dance Company, and Wasteland Music.
Beetz has appeared at events such as the Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Dark Music Days (Iceland), Time of Music (Finland), American Music Festival (Washington, DC), and the Ojai Music Festival. She finds inspiration from her collaborations with artists Jennifer Bewerse, April Dawn Guthrie, Jacqueline Kerrod, Alma Laprida, Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs, Vicky Ray, Nichole Speciale, and Berglind María Tómasdóttir. You can hear her performances on Orenda, Blue Griffin, iikki, and Neuma, in addition to Populist records, where she is a co-director with Andrew McIntosh and Andrew Tholl.