Composer and flutist, Rachel Beetz creates music that engages an embodied presence by creating an interplay between the sonic subconscious and environment. She is particularly influenced by her surroundings, including the sounds of machines, fans, and water, histories of objects and places, interpersonal collaboration, and her synesthesia between sound and touch. Her music “suggests the action of supernatural entities,” (The Quietus), while also being a “soundtrack for a cooking show turned film noir” (Best of Experimental Bandcamp). Beetz’s sound projects have taken her from a sunless winter fjord, to empty grain bins of the American Midwest, and also into your kitchen. She has held residencies in art houses in rural Iceland, the Women’s Center for Creative Work in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Los Feliz Charter School for the Arts in Los Angeles, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida. Her projects have been featured in concert halls and galleries in Australia, Iceland, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. You can hear her compositions on One Sound Object, Orenda, and Outside Time records.
Image: Halline Overby for LAPhil Insight
As a flutist, Rachel Beetz plays “elegantly” (Washington Post) while “evoking the roar of prehistoric animals” (San Diego Union Tribune). She primarily performs music by living composers and works from the last century. She’s participated in operatic premieres by Laure Hiendl, Ellen Reid, and Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs in addition to chamber works by Richard Barrett, Nicholas Deyoe, Liza Lim, Alvin Lucier, Celeste Oram, Yvonne Wu, and Kimia Koochakzadeh Yazdi, among many others. Beetz has appeared with ensembles such as the International Contemporary Ensemble, Third Coast Percussion, Bozzini Quartet, and the Martha Graham Dance Company. She is a member of the Modern Current Ensemble, Wasteland Music, and WildUp.
Beetz has appeared at festivals such as the Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Dark Music Days (Iceland), Time of Music (Finland), American Music Festival (Washington, D.C.), and the Ojai Music Festival (California), and given performances at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Red Cat Theatre, the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art, and the Soraya in Los Angeles, the Integratron in Joshua Tree, Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavik, Iceland, while connecting with the listeners and communities venues of the Red Room in Baltimore, Rhizome in Washington, D.C., Indexical in Santa Cruz, the West Oakland Sound Series, Solarc Brewery in Los Angeles, and Mengi in Reykjavik. She finds inspiration from her collaborations with artists Jennifer Bewerse, Jacqueline Kerroud, Alma Laprida, Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs, Heidi Ross, Vicky Ray, Nichole Speciale, and Berglind Maria Tómasdóttir. You can hear her performances on Blue Griffin, One Sound Object, Orenda, Outside Time, iikki, Neuma, in addition Populist records where she is a co-director alongside Andrew McIntosh and Andrew Tholl.
As an academic, Beetz has been in residence, given courses and guest lectures on contemporary flute and chamber music practices at institutions such as the California Institute of the Arts, Colburn School, Iceland University for the Arts, New England Conservatory, Pomona College, Stanford University, and others. She is currently a lecturer at Moorpark College and Peabody Conservatory.