Claire van Kampen

Claire van Kampen was composer and music director of the A.R.T. productions of Hamlet and The Seagull in 1991. She began her theater career with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1986, followed by work at the Royal National Theatre in 1987, becoming the first woman to be a musical director with either company. She has subsequently developed an international career as a composer/ performer, writing and playing for theatre, radio, television and film soundtracks and the concert hall. Since the opening of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London in 1997, she was Mark Rylance’s Associate Artistic Director, and the Founding Director of Theatre Music, creating both period and contemporary music for more than 35 of the Globe’s productions. She is now a Senior Research Fellow and Associate for Early Modern Theatre Music at the Globe. Other work includes music for La Bête on Broadway and the West End; Richard III and Twelfth Night at Shakespeare’s Globe/West End/Broadway; True West and Boeing-Boeing on Broadway; As You Like It at Theatre for a New Audience. Her new play Farinelli and the King ran in the West End last fall and is to become a screenplay. Recent films featuring her music include Anonymous, Days and Nights, and the miniseries Wolf Hall (historical music arranger). She was given The Vero Nihil Verius Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts at Concordia University in Portland, OR and the 2007 Sam Wanamaker Award for the founding work during the opening ten years at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.