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The director and composer Claire van Kampen, the wife of the actor Mark Rylance, has died at the age of 71 after being diagnosed with cancer.
She died in the central German town of Kassel surrounded by her family on Saturday morning, a statement shared on behalf of Rylance and her daughter Juliet said. Saturday also marked Rylance’s 65th birthday.
Van Kampen was a concert pianist, playwright, theatre director and worked in various roles at Shakespeare’s Globe for around 20 years.
Her family described her as “one of the funniest and [most] inspiring women we have ever known”.
They added: “We thank her for imbuing our lives with her magic, music, laughter, and love.
“Ring the bell, sound the trumpets reverie, something is done, something is beginning. One of the great wise ones has passed.”
Van Kampen trained at the Royal College of Music in London where she studied music theory and piano, specialising in the performance of 20th century music.
She went on to have a career as a composer and performer, writing and playing for theatre, radio, television and film soundtracks and the concert hall.
In 1986, Van Kampen began her theatre career with the Royal Shakespeare Company and with the Royal National Theatre the following year.
She served as artistic associate at Shakespeare’s Globe from 1996 to 2006 when Rylance was the artistic director.
Van Kampen later acted as a musical consultant and resident composer to the subsequent artistic director Dominic Dromgoole from 2007 to 2015.
She was also a creative associate of the Old Vic theatre in London.
Van Kampen’s theatre credits include composing the music for the 1989 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet starring Rylance, whom she married that same year.
Later in her career she created original scores for Broadway productions of 2000’s True West, 2008’s Boeing-Boeing and 2010 comedy La Bete, as well as adaptations of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Richard III.
Van Kampen also wrote the play Farinelli and the King, which saw Rylance star as King Philippe V of Spain and was nominated for several Olivier awards including best new play, and a number of Tony awards.
Rylance was asked about his creative relationship with his wife in an article for the Guardian in 2023. He said: “Claire completely changed my life. We met at the National Theatre when she was musical director of a play I was in.
“She introduced me to that world of classical and modern music, and it was very much around music that we fell in love.
“We’ve always loved working together, from Phoebus Cart, our own theatre company in the 90s, to our years at the Globe, to Farinelli and the King.
“From the beginning, we were always imagining stories that we could tell together. I’ve lost count of how many projects we’ve imagined, sitting there at our kitchen table.”
Van Kampen was previously married to architect Christopher van Kampen, with whom she had two daughters Juliet and Nataasha.
Her youngest daughter Nataasha, a filmmaker, died aged 28 in 2012 after suffering a brain haemorrhage.
