Camille van Lunen

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The composer Camille van Lunen was born in Amsterdam and grew up in several different European countries. After studying the viola in Brussels, she moved to The Hague to study singing and composition, which she continued in Cologne where she now lives. Her work is full of wit and colour and often treats social and spiritual themes of our time.

Van Lunen's experience as a singer is reflected in her own vivid writing for both solo voice (in the songs and operas) and in her choral works. Both illustrate her strong dramatic instinct and sensitivity to French, English and German texts, reflecting her own polyglot background. A lively wit characterises much of her chamber music, as in the humorous wind quintet "Entgleist" (2006), the "Songs of the British Isles" (2008) and "Quatuor pour l'aurore des Temps" (2016), which she composed in collaboration with biologists.

Camille van Lunen has responded to a wide variety of commissions to produce works of great originality and in a highly distinctive style, ranging from "The Rock Boy" for young people (Leverkusen, 2005; Opera Bonn 2007-2008) through "O Mare Nostrum" (Acht Brücken Festival Köln, 2016; Sao Paulo 2016), an adaptation of her prize-winning "O Sacrum Convivium" which gives a voice to recently-arrived refugees in Cologne to "Fusion" for choir and trombone (Prix du Département de la Loire, 2020) and the opera "Amal, over the Wall" (Bethlehem, 2021, Paris, La Seine Musicale, 2022). The international project with Palestinian and European choirs and musicians was supported by the Siemens Stiftung. Her new children's opera "Peter Pan", commissioned by Theater Hagen, was performed during the season 2024-25 to an enthusiastic public. In November 2025, the world premiere of "Vingt six éclats de lumière" for vocal octet, clarinet and percussion took place as part of Festyvocal, Biennale de Musique Vocale Contemporaine. (Ensemble Alkymia and members of the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain).

The composer is regularly asked by music academies and choirs to give workshops in vocal composition and improvisation (Basel 2016, Freiburg 2021, Dortmund 2022, Cologne 2023). Her works are performed by young soloists and selected for international competitions. Van Lunen's oeuvre is both demanding and rewarding for performers and audiences alike. Hers is very much a voice for today.

In 2015-2016 Camille van Lunen was Artist in Residence at the Gulbenkian Scientific Institute (Lisbon). She is the winner of the International Composition Competition of the Mariann Steegman Foundation (2013), a finalist in the 4th Uuno Klami International Composition Competition 2019 (Finnland) and prize winner at the Biennale de Musique Vocale Contemporaine 2020: Prix du Département de la Loire. She is a prize-winner of the composition competition "Females Featured 2" (children's choir category) for her "Morgenstern Album I" (2025).