Rachel Lee Zhao is a violinist born and raised in the lush farmland of the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. She graduated from Oberlin Conservatory in 2015 with a bachelor's in violin performance and earned her Master of Music in violin performance from Roosevelt University in 2018. She will graduate from Shenandoah University in May 2022 with an Artist Diploma. Her primary teachers have included Akemi Takayama, David Bowlin and Almita Vamos.

Rachel is currently the recipient of Shenandoah University’s Ryuji Ueno Foundation Violin Studio Fund, the Lorraine A Pedersen Memorial Scholarship in Orchestral Performance, the Harriet Campbell Fund and the Shenandoah Orchestra Fund.

Rachel is an avid orchestral and chamber musician, and was in the 2021 national finals of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Chamber Music Competition, and has participated in orchestral performances at Chicago Symphony Center, the Kennedy Center, as well as Chicago’s Harris Theater and Auditorium Theaters. Rachel is a member of Unsupervised Ensemble Chicago and performs regularly with the New Orchestra of Washington. Rachel is inspired by contemporary chamber music and hopes to continue to promote and collaborate with young composers, creating sustainable art for the future.