Amélie-Julie Candeille

Amélie-Julie Candeille (; night of 30/31 July 1767, parish of Saint-Sulpice, Paris – 4 February 1834, Paris) was a French composer, librettist, writer, singer, actress, comedian, and instrumentalist. Life Early life Julie Candeille described herself in her Mémoires as having “bright blonde hair, brown eyes, white, fine and clear skin, and a soft and laughing air”. According to her colleague Louise Fusil, Candeille was pretty, with “a well-taken size, a noble gait, and traits and whiteness as held by creole women”. Her ancestry was actually Flemish, with no known Creole elements, Candeille, like many women musicians of her time, came from a musical family. Her father Pierre-Joseph Candeille (1744–1827) was a composer, actor and low-bass opera-singer in the chorus, though he ended up exiled in Moulins where he became a theatre director. Her father was her primary teacher, and some have speculated that his deeply invested interest in his daughter’s education was an effort to bolster his career. Candeille developed her natural talents for song and harpsichord and performed extensively while still a child in chamber orchestras. Aged 7 she played in a concert before the French king and s