A French composer born January 17, 1990.
After instrumental training at the Amiens Conservatory, Camille Pépin entered the Pôle Supérieur d’Enseignement Artistique in Paris and then the Paris Conservatory, in the classes notably of Thierry Escaich, Guillaume Connesson and Marc-André Dalbavie.
Sensitive to rhythm, she is attracted by the ballets of Stravinsky, the impressionism of Debussy and the minimalist music of Steve Reich. The visual arts nurture her inspiration: the cinema, photography and notably the pictorial arts, from Edward Hopper’s American realism (Nighthawks for harp, 2019) to the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock (Autumn rhythm for violin and piano, 2018), as well as the Japanese prints of Hasui Kawase (Early summer rain for marimba, violin and piano, 2018) and of Utagawa Hiroshige (Snow moon and flowers for cello, saxophone and piano, 2018). Her approach is also enriched by literature and her imagination, in particular the American imagists for their style, close as it is to nature, and for their sobriety: Chamber music for mezzo-soprano, clarinet, horn, piano, violin and cello, to poems by James Joyce, first performed at the festival Présences féminines in Toulon (2017); Dancing poems for mezzo-soprano, cello and piano to poems by T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams and William Butler Yeats, first performed at the festival Messiaen au Pays de la Meije (2018); The road not taken for violin, cello and piano, the title inspired by the eponymous work by the American poet Robert Frost, first performed at the festival Présences of Radio France (2018).
Camille Pépin was awarded the Grand Prix Sacem for young composers in 2015, the Audience Prize at the European Young Talents Festival in 2016, the Prix d’Encouragement of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 2017 and she was named as one of the Trente Éclaireurs of Vanity Fair in 2018.
