Rachael Sage (born Karen Rachael Weitzman in 1971) is an American singer-songwriter and visual artist. She is the founder of indie label MPress Records. Sage has released fourteen solo studio albums. Sage was named one of the Top 100 Independent Artists of the Past 15 Years by Performing Songwriter magazine. The New York Times describes Sage as "alternately channeling her inner Fanny Brice and Jewish Norah Jones". Early life Sage was born Karen Rachael Weitzman in 1971 in Port Chester, New York, to shoe designer Stuart Weitzman and his wife, Jane. Sage studied drama and ballet before switching to music. A self-taught pianist, influenced by her parents' doo-wop and the Beatles records, as well as Broadway cast albums, she created demos on a four-track recording system she received as a bat mitzvah present. During junior high school, Sage gained admission to the School of American Ballet. Sage attended Stanford University where she hosted a nighttime college radio show as "Full Moon Rachael". She studied theater with professors such as playwright Anna Deavere Smith, and graduated in 1993 with a degree in drama. For one year, she was in the Actors Studio MFA program. Her performance in their New York talent search won her a place on the Village Stage of the 1999 Lilith Fair. Music Sage's career includes the writing of jingles and theme music for film and television; her first notable jingle customer was Crystal Light. She began using the name "Rachael Sage" in 1995, and in 1996 she started her own record label, MPress Records, inspired by Ani DiFranco founding Righteous Babe Records six years earlier. On April 23, 1996, Sage released her debut studio album, Morbid Romantic, on MPress. She toured Europe four times and released four more albums. For her 2004 song "Sacrifice" from the album Ballads & Burlesque, Sage won Best Folk/Singer-Songwriter Song at the 4th Annual Independent Music Awards in 2005. "Brave Mistake" from the album Delancey Street was nominated for Best Story Song at the 10th Annual Independent Music Awards in 2011. In the same year, Sage won OutStanding Producer for her song "Hope's Outpost" at the 7th Annual OutMusic Awards. Sage wrote an editorial about homeless youth in New York City for The Morton Report. In her editorial, she mentioned a collaboration of artists, unveiling an album, New Arrivals Vol. 4: Artists Against Youth Homelessness, with proceeds going to the National Network