Rachel grew up in Aberdeen, and developed her love of the cello through participation in the National Youth and Children's Orchestras of Scotland. That joy of making music with others has sustained her throughout her career, which balances a varied freelance life with teaching and research. Rachel is a graduate of the University of Oxford and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. She performs as both a modern and baroque cellist, and in 2017 founded the Scordatura Collective, a chamber ensemble championing music by women and composers of marginalised genders. As part of this project she worked alongside and commissioned young composers, as well as developing an outreach project.

Rachel began teaching for Music Masters in 2019, and was in the first cohort of their pioneering PGCEi in Group Instrumental Learning. In addition to her cello and musicianship teaching, she is now an academic mentor for the PGCEi.

Alongside her work as a cellist and teacher, Rachel is researching the careers of women orchestral musicians in late nineteenth-century London as part of her PhD at King's College London.