French composer Charles van Hemelryck (born 1981) began his higher education in Paris, studying philosophy at the Sorbonne before devoting himself fully to musical creation. He continued his training at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon, where he studied composition and music pedagogy, graduating with two Master’s degrees. An Erasmus scholarship then brought him to the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, where immersion in the Nordic contemporary scene broadened his aesthetic horizon and left a lasting imprint on his musical language.
His work spans a wide range of genres — symphonic and wind orchestra music, chamber music, choral and vocal works — and has been performed in France, Finland, Poland, the Netherlands, Canada, and Iceland. It has received support from the Fondation Société Générale and the Beaumarchais-SACD Association, and has been recognized in numerous international competitions including VocalEspoo (Finland), the Red Note Festival (USA), the Hendrix College Choir Competition (USA), and most recently the Tampa Bay Symphony Competition (USA, 2025).
Charles van Hemelryck’s music draws its inspiration from poetry, philosophical ideas, and the natural world. Poet as much as musician, he cultivates a reciprocal relationship between words and sound. Contemplating the world, giving shape to thought, moving listeners in order to prompt reflection — these are the aims of his music. He seeks a balance between formal rigor and spontaneous impulse, between contemplation and exaltation. Situated in the lineage of American and European postminimalism, he develops a language rooted in pulsation and clarity of texture. His writing is nourished as much by a search for purity as by a delight in rhythm: trance and jubilation coexist with serenity and silence. He readily embraces his taste for popular music and its energy.
In April 2026, his concerto for horn and symphony orchestra, Vers le Soleil, will be released on disc, performed by Hervé Joulain with the Sinfonietta Riga.
Alongside his work as a composer, he has taught composition, harmony and counterpoint, analysis, orchestration and musical anthropology at the Conservatoire de Valence Romans Agglo, the University of Bourgogne-Europe, and the École Supérieure de Musique de Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. He is currently Professor of Composition and Orchestration at the Conservatoire du Pays de Montbéliard.
An avid sailor, he finds in navigation an intimate metaphor for creation: forces in motion, breath, inner orientation. This relationship with wind, time, silence, and the tumult of the sea permeates his musical imagination, particularly palpable in his horn sonata Au large, l’étendue and his choral work Présence.
His artistic journey is guided by a search for clarity and resonance: making thought perceptible, turning joy into an act of resistance, and seeking, in variation and in time, the trace of a vital impulse. His work weaves a link between intellect and emotion, between peace and enthusiasm, between simplicity and light.
© Charles van Hemelryck 2025