Episode 7
Michelle Assay interviews composer, director, playwright, and all-round Renaissance person, Claire Van Kampen, on her richly varied career working for stage and screen.
00:02:00 Claire's introduction to early music, composing for historic instruments
00:08:00 The RSC and touring with Phoebus Cart
00:13:42 Working at the Globe and composing music for Shakespeare's plays
00:23:05 Incorporating early music research into composing
00:29:02 Changing approaches to theatre music at the Globe
00:39:16 Dances and jigs
00:42:29 Twelfth Night and the Globe to Globe project
00:46:24 Theatre music mishaps, playfulness and conviviality
00:50:15 The legacy of Claire's work
00:54:15 Composing, writing and directing in television and film
00:59:38 Shakespeare and race
01:03:32 Living through the pandemic, and finding a sense of purpose
Claire van Kampen trained at London’s Royal College of Music. Studying music theory with Ruth Gipps and piano with Peter Element, she specialized in 20th-century music performance, premiering many works by today’s leading composers. She subsequently developed a career as a composer and performer, writing and playing for theater, radio, television, film soundtracks, and the concert hall.
She began her theatre career with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1986, then the Royal National Theatre in 1987, becoming the first female musical director with either company. In 1990, she co-founded the theatre company Phoebus Cart with her husband Mark Rylance. At Shakespeare’s Globe, she served as Director of Theatre Music and Artistic Associate from 1996 to 2006, directing the music for more than a hundred of the Globe's productions. She is currently the Globe Associate and Senior Research Fellow for early modern music.
In spring 2007, she received the Vero Nihil Verius award for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts, conferred upon her by Concordia University in Oregon, United States. Together with Mark Rylance and Jenny Tiramani, she received the 2007 Sam Wanamaker Award for the founding work during the opening ten years at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.
Ms. van Kampen has created original scores for Broadway’s True West (2000), Boeing-Boeing (2008), La Bête (2010), Twelfth Night and Richard III (2013–14): all were nominated for Tony Awards. She also wrote the play Farinelli and the King (2017–18), first performed at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and then the West End in 2015: it received six Olivier Award nominations, and five tony nominations when it was staged on Broadway in 2018.
Claire has also written the music for numerous film and television productions, including Wolf Hall for the BBC. As well as adapting Farinelli and the King for the screen (under the new title Farinelli and the Queen), she has written It Never Entered My Mind, a film about the abstract expressionist painter Elaine de Kooning, and is currently working as its director in production.
Claire also gives regular lectures on Shakespeare and music, and in 2019 she received an honorary doctorate of music from Brunel University. She is also writing a book on Shakespeare and music.
Episode 7
Michelle Assay interviews composer, director, playwright, and all-round Renaissance person, Claire Van Kampen, on her richly varied career working for stage and screen.
00:02:00 Claire's introduction to early music, composing for historic instruments
00:08:00 The RSC and touring with Phoebus Cart
00:13:42 Working at the Globe and composing music for Shakespeare's plays
00:23:05 Incorporating early music research into composing
00:29:02 Changing approaches to theatre music at the Globe
00:39:16 Dances and jigs
00:42:29 Twelfth Night and the Globe to Globe project
00:46:24 Theatre music mishaps, playfulness and conviviality
00:50:15 The legacy of Claire's work
00:54:15 Composing, writing and directing in television and film
00:59:38 Shakespeare and race
01:03:32 Living through the pandemic, and finding a sense of purpose
Claire van Kampen trained at London’s Royal College of Music. Studying music theory with Ruth Gipps and piano with Peter Element, she specialized in 20th-century music performance, premiering many works by today’s leading composers. She subsequently developed a career as a composer and performer, writing and playing for theater, radio, television, film soundtracks, and the concert hall.
She began her theatre career with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1986, then the Royal National Theatre in 1987, becoming the first female musical director with either company. In 1990, she co-founded the theatre company Phoebus Cart with her husband Mark Rylance. At Shakespeare’s Globe, she served as Director of Theatre Music and Artistic Associate from 1996 to 2006, directing the music for more than a hundred of the Globe's productions. She is currently the Globe Associate and Senior Research Fellow for early modern music.
In spring 2007, she received the Vero Nihil Verius award for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts, conferred upon her by Concordia University in Oregon, United States. Together with Mark Rylance and Jenny Tiramani, she received the 2007 Sam Wanamaker Award for the founding work during the opening ten years at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.
Ms. van Kampen has created original scores for Broadway’s True West (2000), Boeing-Boeing (2008), La Bête (2010), Twelfth Night and Richard III (2013–14): all were nominated for Tony Awards. She also wrote the play Farinelli and the King (2017–18), first performed at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and then the West End in 2015: it received six Olivier Award nominations, and five tony nominations when it was staged on Broadway in 2018.
Claire has also written the music for numerous film and television productions, including Wolf Hall for the BBC. As well as adapting Farinelli and the King for the screen (under the new title Farinelli and the Queen), she has written It Never Entered My Mind, a film about the abstract expressionist painter Elaine de Kooning, and is currently working as its director in production.
Claire also gives regular lectures on Shakespeare and music, and in 2019 she received an honorary doctorate of music from Brunel University. She is also writing a book on Shakespeare and music.