Who is Joan Tower?
from Bolivia to New York, from pianist to composer, and beyond—Joan Tower in a nutshell
With her work Les eaux célestes, Camille Pépin holds up a Chinese fairy tale as a mirror to our own reality. "If I chose this legend, it is because it inspired many orchestral colours and because if the stars speak of the universe, our stories about them reveal something about us."
Curious to know more about the composer? Great! Here's a short introduction.
Stravinsky: Petrushka · 24.04.2026 · Flagey
Beyond The Score – This concert series celebrates the power of imagination: our fantasy transforms what we see in the real world into a universe that is entirely our own, coloured by who we are. What is real? What is illusion? What is imagination? What is reality?
The visual dimension enhances this sense of estrangement – and invites the audience to imagine a personal parallel universe. The new works by artist Ellen Vrijsen, inspired by the music, activate the viewer’s imagination.
discover moreHead in the stars
(and feet in Amiens)
Camille Pépin was born in 1990 in Amiens, a provincial city in northern France not exactly known as a hotbed of classical music. She grows up in an environment where imagination is at least as important as technique. Early on, she develops a fascination with stories, nature, and cosmic phenomena – elements that later find their way into her musical universe.
From Conservatoire to Spotlight
At the Conservatoire de Paris, Pépin finds herself in a pressure cooker. While some colleagues need years to discover their voice, she seems to have defined hers with striking clarity by the time she graduates. Even before the label ‘young, promising composer’ has fully dried, commissions start arriving in rapid succession – a luxury problem she composes her way through with audible delight.
Always on the move
Say ‘Pépin’, and you say titles that take the listener travelling. Lyrae, Laniakea, Les eaux célestes, or The Sound of Trees sound like chapters from a poetic atlas. Pépin does not usually write programme music in the strict sense, yet her work breathes a strong narrative impulse. Her scores invite us to listen with an open, gently wondering gaze.
Modern, yet timeless
Although Pépin’s language is unmistakably of today, her music refuses to submit to the aesthetic severity that can seem to typify contemporary composers. Rhythm, colour, and transparency are central, with an orchestral flair that makes her work strikingly approachable. At a time when new music is still too often heard with a frown, Pépin seems entirely at ease with the idea that it may simply sound pleasurable, too.
Acclaimed composer
That her approach resonates is clear from a trophy cabinet growing as fast as her oeuvre. In 2015, Pépin won SACEM’s prestigious Grand Prix Musique Symphonique (the French counterpart of SABAM). Later came a Victoire de la musique classique, and since 2022 she has been a member of the French Order of Arts and Letters. A remarkable string of recognitions for someone who has only just left the starting blocks – oh no, now we are the ones calling her young and promising again.
Beyond the Score
With Beyond The Score, Brussels Philharmonic looks beyond the notes, exploring what symphonic music awakens in other voices across our society. These concerts are born from creation, encounter, and cross-pollination with the wider arts field.
More voices. More impulses. And above all: music. More than music.
