Rachel Galinne

Rachel Galinne was born in 1949 in Stockholm

Rachel Galinne, born Gluchowicz, was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1949. Her parents, Gershon and Tzipora Gluchowicz, were born in Poland and survived the Holocaust. Her mother worked early in computerized librarianship in Sweden, and her father fought with the Free Polish army in northern Norway and later became an engineer.

She began piano lessons at age 9 and studied musicology, education and film at Stockholm University. She then earned a bachelor's degree in Semitic languages, focused on Hebrew, at Uppsala University in 1974. After moving to Israel in 1975, she studied composition with Leon Schidlowsky at the Rubin Academy at Tel Aviv University, earning music degrees in 1984 and 1988.

In 1980 she took a composition course in France with Witold Lutoslawski, and in 1984 she attended the summer seminar for new music in Darmstadt. Her first published works, written in the 1980s, include "Shattering of the Ice Sea" and "Circles". She has written about 40 works, many setting biblical texts, and her style moved from European modernism toward postmodernism.

Her works have been performed in Israel, Sweden and the United States. In 1994 she received the Prime Minister's Prize for Composers and the ACUM Prize. In 2003 a full concert of her music was held in Mainz, and in 2011 her archive moved to the National Library in Jerusalem.