Claire van Kampen

Claire Louise van Kampen
Born	November 1953 (age 63) London, England
Occupation	Director, composer, playwright
Spouse(s)	Chris van Kampen (divorced) Mark Rylance (m. 1989)
Children	2

Claire Louise van Kampen, Lady Rylance (born November 1953) is an English musical director, director, composer and playwright. She composed the music for Mark Rylance's 1989 performance as Hamlet and shared the 2007 Sam Wanamaker Award with him. Her composing credits include music for productions of the plays Days and Nights and Boeing-Boeing.

In 2015, she was historical music advisor and arranger of Tudor music on the BBC TV series Wolf Hall.

Van Kampen was born in Marylebone, London, England. She originally trained as a pianist at the Royal College of Music for five years, becoming the recipient of a John Land scholarship. As a girl she met David Munrow, a recorder player and pioneer of the early-music scene in England, and became interested in Renaissance music.

Studying music theory with Dr Ruth Gipps, she also specialised in the performance of 20th century music, premiering many works by today's leading composers.

In 1986, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the Royal National Theatre, the first female musical director with both companies. In 1990, she co-founded the theatre company Phoebus Cart with her husband Mark Rylance.

Since the opening of the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in 1997, van Campen has been the Director of Theatre Music, creating both period and contemporary music for 30 of the Globe's productions - including the ‘jazz' Macbeth in 2001, and The Golden Ass in 2002, which contained a 30-minute opera Cupid and Psyche.

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.

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