Rachel Eubanks

Rachel Amelia Eubanks (September 12, 1922 – April 8, 2006) was an American composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. Life and career Rachel Amelia Eubanks was born on September 12, 1922 in San Jose, California, US. Her parents, Joseph Sylvester and Elizabeth Amelia Eubanks, struggled during the Great Depression, still managing to take Rachel and her brothers Jonathan and Joseph to the concerts of numerous musicians: Roland Hayes, Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson. Settling in Oakland, California, Eubanks attended Roosevelt Junior High School and later Oakland High School. Eubanks learned both clarinet and alto horn in elementary school, later taking piano lessons. She wrote her first composition at 11 years old; after finishing a poem for Mother’s Day, Eubanks considered it incomplete and decided to set it to music. Other early pieces include the works Just You and I and Memories of Mother of Mine. Her first serious work came at age 14: the Waters of the Ganges for piano, inspired by the stories of a family friend who went to India as a missionary. Eubanks married Mac MacDonald, a Baptist minister, in 1950. Her future plans did not align with the traditional responsibilities for the