Rachel Grimes

Heralded “one of American independent music’s few truly inspired technicians” by WIRE magazine, Rachel Grimes is a pianist, composer, and arranger based in Kentucky. She has toured worldwide as a solo pianist, and her work has been performed by such artists as A Far Cry, Longleash, Amsterdam Sinfonietta Trio, Dublin Guitar Quartet, Portland Cello Project, Cicada, Orchestra Kandinskij, Borusan Quartet and Önder sisters, Kansas City Symphony, Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, Oregon Symphony, Lexington Philharmonic, and the Louisville Orchestra. Rachel has performed at some of the world’s most diverse music festivals including Big Ears, Ecstatic Music Festival, Substrata, All Tomorrow’s Parties, P Festival, and CrossLinx. Collaborators include Loscil, SITI Company, astrïd and Sylvain Chauveau, Chris Wells, Scott Moore, Jacob Duncan, Matthew Nolan and Erik Friedlander. Solo releases: The Way Forth (Instrumentals) (Temporary Residence 2020), The Way Forth (Temporary Residence Ltd. 2019), Wove It Into Cloth (single/LP comp. on Deutsche Grammophon 2019), The Doctor From India (soundtrack 2018), Through the Sparkle (with astrïd on Gizeh Records 2017), The Clearing (Temporary Residence Ltd. 2015), Book of Leaves, Marion County 1938, and Compound Leaves, as well as contributions to the albums of fellow artists like Watter, Dawn Landes, Giant Sands, We/Or/Me, Christopher Tignor, Seluah, Joan Shelley, Nathan Salsburg, Christian Frederickson, Tara Jane O’Neil, Helen Money, R. M. Hubbert + Aiden Moffat, and the Frames. She is a member of Louisville rock band King’s Daughters & Sons (Chemikal Underground) and a founding member of the ground-breaking indie-rock chamber ensemble Rachel’s, with whom she toured and released six albums (Quarterstick / Touch & Go).


Recent commissions include: “The Blue Hour” for A Far Cry with co-composers Angélica Negrón, Shara Nova, Caroline Shaw, and Sarah Kirkland-Snider (Grammy-nominated album on Nonesuch/New Amsterdam Records released Oct. 2022 and named one of NPR’s Top Ten Albums of 2022); film score with Matthew Nolan for “People On Sunday” for the National Gallery of Art; orchestrations of Book of Leaves for the Louisville Orchestra; a work for string quartet and two pianos for Borusan Quartet (Istanbul) and Ferhan and Ferzan Önder; a new piece “Your Mother, My Mother” and an arrangement of “And Today Was Her Birthday” for two pianos for the Önder sisters for their Anonymous Was A Woman project; a quartet for the Portland Cello Project; a new suite with Julia Kent for cello and piano for the installation Doppelgänger by London artist Peter Liversidge; a rendition of the national anthem for Smithsonian Magazine. She has contributed scoring, research, and recordings for multi-media installations for Donna Lawrence Productions (Museum of World Religions, Kentucky Show!, Kentucky Derby Museum, National Infantry Museum, New York Historical Society). Her recordings have been licensed to numerous film and TV works internationally including The New Pope, Listen to Me Marlon, Lost In Vagueness, War Machine, Actress, HBO series Witness, Gasland and Gasland II (HBO), Last Days Here, and Academy Award and Golden Globe winner La Grande Bellezza.