Born in France in 1988 to an organist father and an oboist mother, Hélène Clément spent a very large part of her childhood playing music with her five siblings. This joyful, though often raucous and possibly not always ear pleasing environment led her to experience music as a vital means of communication. Ever since she has loved sharing with audiences, colleagues and pupils the joy and privilege of experiencing music live.

Her thirst for the chamber music and ferocious enthusiasm for viola repertoire leads her to constantly expand her musical horizons by performing with a wide range of different collaborations, playing in the most prestigious concert halls in Europe and around the World.

Following her passion as a chamber musician, she has performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Wigmore Hall in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Cité de la Musique in Paris. Her chamber music partners have included Mitsuko Uchida, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Benjamin Grosvenor, Alexander Melnikov, Jonathan Biss and Peter Wispelwey, as well as the Brentano String Quartet, the Quatuor Ébène, the Quatuor Modigliani and the Nash Ensemble. She recently collaborated with Tabea Zimmerman, playing “Viola Viola” by George Benjamin at the Musikgebouw in Amsterdam.

For twelve years Hélène was a member of the Doric String Quartet, with whom she fulfilled her appetite for deep explorations of the repertoire, from Haydn to newly commissioned work. The Quartet played recitals at the Amsterdam Muziekgebouw, Vienna Musikverein, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Hamburg Laeiszhalle and De Singel, as well as regular performances at the Wigmore Hall and throughout the UK. Further afield they toured to Japan, Israel, Australia, America, Asia and New Zealand. The Doric String Quartet have a substantial discography, and releases from that period include a wide range of recordings, featuring the works by Haydn, Britten, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Beethoven and Brett Dean. She regards those twelve years as a crucial milestone in her musical path, where she built a strong sense of her musical identity, surrounded by extremely curious, inspiring and kind musicians.

In 2022 Ms Clément released a recording of Britten and Bridge Viola works & songs with Dame Sarah Connolly and Alasdair Beatson, for Chandos Records. This recording was performed on a 1843 Italian viola owned previously by Benjamin Britten and Frank Bridge. The viola is generously lent to her by Britten Pears Arts.

Other recent CD releases include Tchaïkovsky's “Souvenir de Florence” with the Quatuor Modigliani and Antoine Lederlain, as well as discs of works by Frank Bridge and Benjamin Britten with Maria Wloszczowska, Steffan Morris and Jâms Coleman.

Mentoring and sharing chamber music experiences with the younger generation of musicians has become an important part of Hélène Clément’s life, and in this context she is a frequent guest atthe Prestigious Marlboro Music Festival in America. She is invited to coach young groups at festivals such as Trondheim Chamber Music festival, Lillehammer in Norway, and in Residencies for Young Classical Artists Trust. She gives regular Viola Masterclasses worldwide as well as Chamber Music Masterclasses.

She is a Professor of Viola and Chamber Music at the Royal Academy of Music of London where she has recently been made an honorary associate. From September 2026 she will take up the role of Professor of Viola at the Haute École de Musique in Geneva.

Hélène Clément's studies began at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris with Jean Sulem. She went on to study with Hariolf Schlichtig at the Musikhochschule in Munich before attending the Hanns Eisler Musikhochschule in Berlin with Tabea Zimmerman.