Two-time Illinois State Fiddle Champion Rachel Baiman began playing the violin at the age of four. Her love for traditional music was encouraged by her parents, who frequented folk festivals round the country. Rachel entered her first fiddle contest when she was seven, and has since placed first in numerous contests, including the Sandwich Fair Fiddle Contest, Naperville Bluegrass Festival Fiddle Contest, Woodstock Harvest Festival Fiddle Contest and the Illinois State Fiddle Championship, an honor that Alison Krauss earned several years prior. Throughout high school, Rachel began to diversify her musical interests, performing and recording an album with rock band Not Without, as well as appearing with bluegrass bands Ashton Gap and Big Mo and the Shy Town Bluegrass Band and performing with jazz influenced singer/songwriter Tim Coan. She has also attended numerous camps and workshops, including the Mark O’Connor Fiddle Camp, Alisdair Frasier’s Sierra Fiddle Camp and Rocky Mountain Fiddle Camp where she had the opportunity to participate in master classes with Bruce Molsky, Brittany Haas, Darrol Anger, and Mark O’Connor, among others. In the summer of 2008, Rachel traveled to Prince Edward Island, Canada, where she immersed herself in the Scottish influenced fiddle and dance traditions, and was invited to perform at the Rollo Bay Fiddle Festival. Upon graduating from high school, Rachel was the recipient of the Carlos Baldoceda Senior Music Award as well as an Oak Park Area Arts Council Scholarship. Upon moving to Nashville in the fall of 2009, Rachel joined The Second Stringers; a bluegrass and old-time string band, and was invited to perform with this group at the Station Inn and on the Grand Old Opry with Mike Snyder. Rachel is currently a student at Vanderbilt University, where she is a double major in Sociology and Music, and studies fiddle with Matt Combs. However, she will spend the Fall 2010 semester at the University of Edinburgh where she hopes to immerse herself in Scottish traditional music. She was also awarded a Global Summer Fellowship from Vanderbilt to travel to Montreal in May 2010 to study French-Canadian music, art and culture. She hopes to bring her love for fiddle music of all kinds back to her hometown, and this August she will direct the first ever Oak Park Fiddle Camp, for kids ages 5-10. Rachel has just released her first studio project, a 6 track EP with incredible mandolin player and pianist Neil Pearlman. The duo can be heard at www.myspace.com/2xmusic Thanks for the listen...
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