About Rachel Galinne

Rachel Galinne (Gluchowicz) was born in 1949 in Stockholm, Sweden, to Polish Jewish parents, who were Holocaust survivors – Zofia, who survived Birkenau, was evacuated from Ravensbrück Camp to Sweden by the Red Cross at the end of the War, completed her degree in Slavic languages and was one of the pioneers of computerized libraries in Sweden; and Gershon, a soldier in the Free Polish Army in northern Norway, fled the Nazi occupation to Sweden and later became an engineer specializing in machines for refining metals.

The first musical experience that Rachel Galinne recalls occurred when she was five. "I heard on the radio Mozart's Variations on the children's song 'Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman'. The work left such an impression on me and a strong desire to understand the connection between the various variations that I just had to write such a work myself…" From then on she continuously asked her parents to send her to music lessons and only four years later was her request granted. She began studying the piano and merely three months later Rachel Galinne, then Gluchowicz, appeared in two local papers, which reported the playing of "a young pupil" at the graduation concert of piano teacher Greta Westfeld.

She continued her piano studies with Prof. G. Boon, a disciple of Arthur Schnabel. Galinne, who wished to study piano and composition at the Stockholm Academy of Music, had to compromise on musicology studies alongside film and education, at her parents' request, who wished to secure her professional and financial future. The lack of Swedish female composers at the time was an additional setback.

Rachel Galinne's first CD, Uneginotai Nenagen - And We Shall Sing my Songs of Praise, was published in 1999, in collaboration with Swedish Radio.

A chamber concert series of her works, held in 2004, was released that year on the CD Prisms.

In 2008 her third CD was released, Ethalech Be'artsot Hachayim - I Will Walk in the Land of the Living and in 2011 a special project, Kol Kore Bamidbar - A Voice Crieth in the Wilderness, which featured several concerts in Israel and Sweden, including works by Galinne. Following this project, her fourth CD was released, named after the project. Among the prominent performers of her works are pianists Sarah Fuxon-Heyman (1932-1992), Michal Tal, Ofra Yitzhaki; alto Mira Zakai; soprano Rona Israel-Kolatt; Swedish violinist Semmy Stahlhammer; Jewish-German oboist Matthew Peaceman (1956-2008) and many others.

Rachel Galinne has won many awards. In 1990, her work Islossning – Breaking the Bonds of Ice represented Israel at the Rostrum Competition in Paris. In 1994 Rachel Galinne received the Prime Minister's Prize. That year her choral work And We Shall Sing My Songs of Praise won the ACUM Prize and was recorded a year later by the Swedish Radio Choir. In 1996 her First Symphony reached the final stage of the 60th anniversary competition of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1993, her work Cycles, premiered in 1992 by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Gary Bertini, received a commendation in the annual Vienna Modern Masters Competition in Vienna, and in 1996 was premiered by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Israel. In 1986 Galinne was a juror at the Lieberson Prize Contest, and for many years she was a member of the Trustee Committee of the Prime Minister Prize for Composers.

In Galinne's stylistic development, we can observe two main stages common to composers of her generations and even of former ones: the first stage is of a European modernist style and the second is a post-modern style, which combines several styles in one work; "A 'pan-tonal' language", as Galinne puts it, "In which all existing styles find their place in a new unity". ​