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English composer, playwright and theatre director Claire van Kampen was born in London on 3 November 1953. She studied at the Royal College of Music, specialising in piano performance of twentieth century music, and also music theory and composition.
She was the first female music director to work with the Royal Shakespeare Company (from 1986) and the Royal National Theatre (from 1987). She became Director of Theatre Music at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, when it opened in 1997, and created both period and contemporary music for forty-eight productions.
She wrote music for the 2008 Broadway revival of the play Boeing-Boeing and for Christian Carmargo's 2013 film Days and Nights.
Claire van Kampen died from cancer in Kassel, Germany, on 18 January 2025, aged seventy-one.