A composer for image, Clémence Ducreux has built her career off the beaten path. An ear-trained pianist rather than a score reader, she went through a sound engineering school, ISTS, before joining the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she trained in composing for film and video games. Her credits include the music for the series Enjoy and the feature films Des jours meilleurs and Classe moyenne. Raised early on the minimalism of Philip Glass and John Adams, she has developed a style built on repetitive motifs, textures and slow evolutions, where nuance matters just as much as melody.
In this episode of Tales, Clémence looks back on her earliest musical memories, on a path she describes as climbing a staircase, and on the fascination with obsessive patterns that still shapes the way she composes today. She also talks about the contrast between a sound engineering degree she took by default and the sense of freedom she found at Berklee, before discussing her recent work on the series Enjoy and her feature films, and what really guides her choices: the emotion to convey and her relationship with the director.
Clémence Ducreux
The Tales interview
What are your earliest memories of music, the first emotions you connected to it?
I think it happened fairly early. I started piano at six, so I was quickly immersed in it. At home we did listen to music, and then there was the arrival of the CD Walkman. I remember getting one toward the end of primary school, and I had it glued to my ears constantly. Whether on the way to school or at home, I loved that closeness of the headphones. I think the first real emotions tied to music came from that period, quite early on.
You mention home, that environment: did you grow up in a family strongly connected to music?
Not really. My brother is in music, but he got into it later, and more importantly he left home fairly late, so as a child I wasn’t necessarily immersed in music through him. Besides, we don’t listen to the same music at all. My parents aren’t into music at all, they’re more into film. My other brother isn’t either. So no, I wouldn’t say I grew up in a musical environment.
So you could say you went looking for music on your own?
Yes, I think I went looking for it. I couldn’t tell you exactly where, but yes, that’s how it happened.
If you had to break your journey into a few key chapters, from your teenage years to today, which ones would stand out?
I started piano at six with classical lessons that I didn’t enjoy all that much. I really struggled with music theory and the traditional way of learning. Very quickly I started playing mostly by ear, trying to reproduce what I heard. It became a game. I took a few lessons, then stopped fairly quickly.
After high school, I went to a sound engineering school, ISTS. Alongside that, I was already a huge geek back in middle and high school. I wanted to write film music, but I hadn’t been to a conservatory. I was already deeply into music software, Logic in particular, and I loved it.
Once I finished school, I moved to Boston to study at Berklee College of Music. To get in, you needed a primary instrument, so I got seriously back into piano for several years, still by ear, without sheet music. There, I really trained in music for image: film and video games. And as soon as I graduated, I started working straight away.
Looking back, was there a decisive turning point in your career?
My path built up fairly gradually, like climbing a staircase. There was never a single moment where everything exploded at once. I started with a lot of short films and documentaries, then a first feature film, a series, and little by little things kept building on each other.
That said, there was one truly memorable moment: a phone call very early one morning from a producer, telling me two directors wanted to work with me on their first feature film. At first I thought it was a joke, I was barely awake and didn’t even know who was calling. But it turned out to be real. It happened relatively early in my career, and I suddenly found myself on a big film, with a big team.
It really was a turning point. People started trusting me more, taking me more seriously. And I told myself: this is really happening now. That year was extremely intense: this first feature film, a series in parallel, so much happening within about nine months. That was last year, and it was clearly a pivotal one.
You often mention the influence of minimalist music. Where does that come from, and how does it stay with you?
I discovered minimalist music very early, through piano. Philip Glass and John Adams were important references. At the same time, my brother listened to a lot of minimal electro house. When I was little, at home, he’d play me tons of vinyl records. I didn’t like it at all, but I remember very clearly that exercise where he’d say: listen, here’s where one instrument comes in, here’s a second motif, here’s a third.
Very quickly, those repetitive motifs, almost obsessive, stuck with me. I’m quite an obsessive person myself, and those patterns would stay in my head for days. I loved trying to reproduce them on piano, then layering things on top.
When I started composing, I was already doing that without really understanding it: taking a motif, looping it, searching for harmonies by ear. And to this day, that’s exactly how I work. Even when I make more electronic music, I always start from a repeated theme, then layer parts on top, piano or other instruments. Minimalist music has always been there, and I think it always will be.
There’s almost an idea of trance in what you’re describing?
Completely. It’s very obsessive. You change a single note and everything shifts, even though nothing else has moved. It’s music that’s very rich with very few elements, and that’s what I love about it.
Does this approach sometimes put you at odds with more pop-oriented musical forms?
Yes, completely. When I work on films, the logic is completely different, but I also sometimes compose for music library albums. I did one recently, and they wanted a very pop structure: verse, chorus, A, B, bridge… What interests me more is a light, gradual evolution from point A to point B, sometimes completely different, without necessarily going through choruses or fixed structures.
You trained as a sound engineer before Berklee. How do you look back on that today?
To be completely honest, I went to that school by default, not by choice. I was never really suited to a traditional methodology. In France, at the time, there wasn’t really a pure music school outside the conservatory.
I went there thinking it was the closest thing to film music. But it was three fairly painful years. I stopped playing piano completely. I watched my classmates get excited about consoles, knobs, technique, and I got almost no pleasure out of any of it. Whenever there was a slightly creative project, I’d be the one to step up, but that stayed marginal.
After that school, I stopped making music for two years…
So Berklee was a real break?
Yes, a genuine liberation. For the first time, I felt entitled to think I might actually be able to write film music. I learned an enormous amount there. About 50% of the students were international, which created an incredible richness, both musically and personally.
There was also the American approach: instead of pointing out your weaknesses, they ask what your strengths are, and push those as far as possible. At first it was pretty overwhelming. Then I understood there was room for everyone, especially in music for image, where creativity isn’t measured like a performance.
The first few months were intense, then I got on board. And it was amazing.
Has that mindset stayed with you to this day?
Yes, absolutely. I’ve kept that very healthy relationship with music: not judging other people’s work, preferring the collective over competition. Competition can motivate me, but I prefer working as a team. In film music, if you don’t have a balanced relationship with the creative process, it just doesn’t work. It’s already an emotionally demanding job as it is.
You’ve worked on a lot of recent projects: series, feature films. How did the series Enjoy come about?
I was contacted after a festival where I’d done a cine-concert. The producer had seen me on stage and felt my style fit the series. Originally, it was supposed to be a competition between several composers, but in the end I was the only one left.
I worked on six episodes of about forty minutes each. The pace was very intense, especially since I had a feature film running in parallel, with mixing sessions scheduled at the same time. It was extremely intense, but also hugely exciting. I got to visit the set, choose which days to be there, and work closely with the editors. Everything came together quite naturally.
Your first feature film, Des jours meilleurs, was also a memorable experience.
Yes, that’s the first feature film I worked on. The directors had discovered my music through the website of the Troisième Autrice collective. A piece I’d written for myself, with no image attached, ended up becoming the film’s theme. The film was even edited to the music, which is very rare for a feature. That made the process incredibly smooth. For a first film, it was a really enjoyable experience, especially since I was making exactly the kind of music I love to make.
You also worked on Classe moyenne.
Yes, again there was a very strong connection to existing pieces. I joined the project when the edit was almost final, with some beautiful footage. Mostly, I reworked a theme I had composed several years earlier. The process was very quick and smooth. There were very few versions, and the whole job took about three months.
What matters most to you when choosing a project?
What draws me in first is the emotion I’ll need to convey through the music, and the musical style the project pushes me to explore. The subject matters, but the relationship with the director is essential. If that relationship is difficult, it stops me from creating. I need a good rapport and a project whose emotion and music speak to me.
If you had a magic pass and could score the music for any film you wanted?
It would have to be a film built on texture. Films like American Beauty, with music by Thomas Newman, or Aftersun. Films where, on the surface, little seems to happen, but so much is going on underneath, and where the music conveys exactly that emotion.
