Singer and songwriter Rachel Garlin has been making music professionally for more than twenty years. She’s toured internationally, earned songwriting honors, and has released nine independent albums. Her most recent album, “The Ballad of Madelyne & Therese,” became the basis for her one-person-show - a narrated concert that tells the story of two women having a forbidden love affair in 1940s New York City.
Garlin’s music and songwriting has been hailed by critics, garnering praise from the San Francisco Chronicle, Americana Highways, and Country Queer. She’s also been embraced by radio, where she has received airplay on tastemaker shows like SiriusXM’s The Village.
An inquisitive kid growing up in Berkeley, Rachel picked up her father’s Gibson J-50 guitar so she could learn songs by the Indigo Girls and Sting. After playing Division1 basketball at Berkeley High School and Harvard, she became a middle school teacher and brought her guitar to the mountains of Guatemala to learn Spanish. Her love of language and words organically led her to songwriting and soon she was playing side stages at the Newport Folk Festival, Kerrville, and Telluride Bluegrass where her songs gained recognition for their sensory detail and storytelling. 

Since then, Garlin’s travels have taken her far and wide; she’s shared the stage with some of her own songwriting heroes, savored her time as a true collaborator, and stayed committed to keeping the creative channels open and sharing her work. Rachel lives in San Francisco with her wife and kids.