Rachel Leader

Rachel Leader, passionate about cultivating vibrant community-rooted spaces, is a klezmer violinist, cultural organizer, and educator. 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. Mamaliga’s debut album, "Dos Gildn Bletl" (2021), was praised as “virtuosic and vibrant” (In Geveb), with its title track winning the 2021 Bubbe Awards for instrumental composition.

Rachel is also a founder, violinist, and producer of the Magid Ensemble’s "Shterna & The Lost Voice," an immersive storytelling production that transports audiences into the rich world of Yiddish folklore. This captivating performance, described as “unspeakably stunning,” features a papercut crankie—a long scroll that illustrates the story as it unwinds—and is accompanied by a live original klezmer music score.

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 and A Glezele Tey. She 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 co-founded and directs KlezCummington, an annual klezmer and Yiddish cultural festival on her family’s land in Cummington, MA.