Dr Rachel Chaplin (m. 1998) works as an oboist with many of the leading period instrument orchestras in the UK and abroad, including the English Baroque Soloists, Classical Opera Company, Florilegium and Retrospect Ensemble. She has been involved with many recordings, including suites by JS Bach and Rameau with the European Union Baroque Orchestra, solo instrumental canciones by Antonio Rodriguez de Hita with La Grande Chapelle, symphonies by Carlos Baguer with Orquesta Baroqua de Sevilla and Thomas Arne's Artaxerxes with Classical Opera Company.
As a modern oboist Rachel works primarily as a chamber musician. She has been active in the commissioning of new repertoire, most notably two trios for oboe, bassoon and piano for her trio Triptych by British composers Benjamin Ellin and Kenneth Hesketh, following awards from the Britten-Pears Foundation and the Park Lane Group. Hesketh's trio was premiered by Triptych in the Purcell Room and they subsequently performed it at the Wigmore Hall and for broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Rachel is a graduate of Christ's, where she obtained a Starred First Class BA degree, and of the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied modern oboe. She studied for a year in Leipzig with Christian Wetzel on a prestigious DAAD scholarship and completed her doctorate as an AHRC scholar at the Royal Academy of Music.