A concert soloist, half of the renowned Joint Venture Percussion Duo and core member of the new music sextet Looptail, Rachel Xi Zhang actively performs on world-class stages both at home and abroad. In solo and duo capacities, she has been awarded multiple international awards, including but not limited to the Vriendenkrans and Het Debuut Concours in Amsterdam. She is also a recipient of the Bernard Haitink Fund and the Emerging Artists Grant of Boston's St. Botolph Club Foundation.

Rachel has been invited at various international marimba festivals such as the Percussion Festival at the National Centre of Performing Arts in Beijing, China; International Marimba Festival in Tabasco, Mexico; Zeltsman Marimba Festival in Appleton and Arcata, U.S.; Samobor Music Festival in Croatia, etc. She has been a concerto soloist with, among others, the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra in China, the European Union Youth Wind Orchestra in Luxembourg, and the City of Southampton Orchestra in the UK.

Rachel received her bachelor’s degree in 2010, graduating cum laude from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam where she studied with Jan Pustjens, Peter Prommel, Nick Woud, Victor Oskam, Gustavo Gimeno, Mark Braafhart, Arnold Marinissen and Lorenzo Ferrandiz. From 2010 to 2014, she continued her studies at the Boston Conservatory with a full scholarship under famed marimba virtuoso Nancy Zeltsman. Upon receiving a master’s degree and Artist Diploma at Boston, Rachel was named a Marimba One Artist. She is enrolled at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels as a PhD in Arts student as of 2014 and continues her international career through constant collaborations with colleagues in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.