SPEAKING OF MUSIC

Rachel Franklin has developed a stellar reputation as a public speaker about music throughout the mid-Atlantic region. Renowned for her wit, scholarship and ability to illuminate even the most complex concert works, her gifts for communication have led to countless lecturing engagements for major orchestras and concert organizations, colleges, adult education groups and others. She has presented frequently for such prestigious venues as the Smithsonian Institution, The Library of Congress, the Peabody Institute, and National Public Radio.

Since 2020 she has been greatly in demand for her unique online presentations. She is one of the Smithsonian Associates’ most popular live-streaming music lecturers, and her topics explore intersections between classical and jazz music, film scores, and the fine arts.

This wide range of musical expertise has brought her back repeatedly to enthusiastic audiences, including the Academy Art Museum in Easton MD, the Chesapeake Film Festival, the Cosmos Club in DC, and many others. Besides appreciating her performing artistry, her listeners rave about her warm, engaging style as she illustrates on the piano.

For two decades she was also the Education Programs Lecturer and Online Content Advisor for the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, giving all the ASO’s pre-concert video “Chats” plus commentating for both the ASO’s live-streamed and pre-recorded concerts.

Dr. Franklin is keenly aware of the need to reach out to audiences who want a “behind the scenes” experience with classical music and its great composers, history and place in the wider world of the arts. She offers many types of lecture-demonstrations, courses and lecture-recital packages. She also enjoys curating musical events and festivals, and all her presentations are designed to suit a wide variety of venues and audiences. She is always delighted to discuss possibilities with music-lovers and organizations.

“Music is not an exclusionary art. It begs involvement. I’m endlessly fascinated by the way these composers reach out to us through the centuries, asking us to engage with them, with their complicated and frequently difficult lives, their relentless drive to create music that will last and speak to us now.”

~Rachel Franklin, Baltimore Sun

FRONT & CENTER: The CONCERTO

Dr. Rachel Franklin invites you on a journey to explore the powerful social experience of the Concerto, and how it all unfolds when you bring

together composer, conductor, soloist, orchestra and the audience.

ART MEETS MUSIC

Music and the visual arts have always walked hand-in-hand. For millennia, artists have obsessed about how to represent music’s invisible beauty, whereas composers have sought to render art’s vibrant colors in pure sound. Dr. Rachel Franklin delves into the intimate relationship between the visible and invisible arts.