Rachel Leader

Rachel Leader is passionate about cultivating vibrant community-led spaces, and is a klezmer violinist, cultural organizer, and educator based in Northampton, MA. She is a founding member of the critically acclaimed klezmer quartet Mamaliga, performing and teaching internationally at Yiddish Summer Weimar, KlezKanada, and Yiddish New York. Rachel is also a founder, violinist, and producer of the Magid Ensemble’s "Shterna & The Lost Voice," an immersive musical storytelling production that transports audiences into the rich world of Yiddish folklore.

Rachel received the 2021 Klezmer New Leaders Fellowship from the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, and is a founding member of in-demand klezmer bands Burikes, A Glezele Tey, among other projects. She also regularly performs with Chaia (Kleztronica), blending house and techno grooves with electric fiddle and archival samples to create innovative soundscapes of Jewish diasporic identity. Rachel is the co-founder and director of KlezCummington, an annual klezmer and Yiddish cultural festival on her family’s land in Cummington, MA.