Diary
These women are sailors, actors, philosophers, orchestra conductors and chefs. They don't belong to the same generation, they have very different profiles and backgrounds, but they all have one thing in common, they are passionate. CANOPEA takes a look at 5 women with inspiring careers.
Clarisse Cremer: from marketing to sailing, there is only one step
Ranked 12th at the finish of the 9th edition of the Vendée Globe, Clarisse Cremer completed her solo round-the-world race in just over 87 days. This performance makes her the fastest woman in the race since its creation. Although she is originally from Paris, the young thirty-year-old has always had a keen interest in the sea. As a child, she discovered sailing during school vacations. After studying at HEC and a promising start in marketing, her life took a new turn.
She joined the man who was to become her husband, the sailor Tanguy Le Turquais, in Brittany. Sailing, which until then had only been a hobby, became a real profession. She participated in several prestigious races: the Solitaire du Figaro, the Transat Jacques-Vabre, the Tour Voile. Swept away by her passion, she went on racing, and only 5 years after her professional sailing debut, her excellent ranking in the Vendée Globe made her a member of the inner circle of the great sailors!
Meryl Streep, star hollywoodienne aux multiples facettes
Depuis la fin des années 70, Meryl Streep participe à écrire l’Histoire du cinéma avec talent. Après un premier rôle en 1977 dans Julia, le grand public la découvre deux ans plus tard dans Kramer contre Kramer, film pour lequel elle obtient son premier Oscar. Dans les années suivantes, elle va tourner avec les plus grands acteurs du moment : avec Jeremy Irons dans La Maîtresse du lieutenant français en 1981, Robert Redford dans Out of Africa en 1985, Clint Eastwood dans Sur la route de Madison en 1995, puis Nicole Kidman et Julianne Moore dans The Hours en 2002.
A partir des années 2000, elle révèle un talent qu’on ne lui connaissait pas encore, celui de chanteuse. Elle tourne plusieurs comédies musicales, dont Mamma Mia en 2008 et The Prom en 2020. Aujourd’hui, à 72 ans, l’actrice a de nombreux projets dans ses cartons, et aussi une immense envie de continuer à exercer ses talents de chanteuse dans de nouvelles comédies musicales !
Marie Robert, the philosophy teacher who is dusting off philosophy
Marie Robert is the philosopher that everyone is talking about at the moment. Her recipe for success is simple: make philosophy accessible to everyone by confronting the thoughts of the great philosophers with the difficulties of everyday life. This gives some original answers listed in successful books: Kant tu ne sais plus quoi faire, il reste la philo, Descartes pour les jours de doute, or, What would Nietzsche do in my place? Thus philosophy would not be this rather boring discipline, taught in high school to students yawning with boredom, but a lively and current discipline allowing to live better every day.
In 2020, the woman who is on her way to becoming our favorite philosophy teacher is pushing the envelope by launching the Philosphy is sexy podcast. Each episode takes up the eternal questions that plague us every day: audacity, love, courage, family, emotions... It makes you want to regularly take a twenty-minute break to listen to Marie Robert's little philosophy lessons!
Claire Gibault, dedicated orchestra director
Since the time she began studying music theory at the age of 4, it is always the same passion that drives Claire Gibault. It was in 1949, at the Conservatoire du Mans. After several years spent studying the piano and the violin, she had another ambition: to become a music director. But to find her place in a very masculine environment is not easy. In spite of everything, Claire climbed the ladder. She won first prize at the Conservatoire du Mans, then entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where she was awarded first prize for conducting in 1969.
She then went on to conduct prestigious orchestras such as La Scala in Milan and the Berlin Philharmonic. In 2010, it is time to retire. But there is no question of stopping. She decided to create her own orchestra, the Paris Mozart Orchestra, a group of about forty musicians. The virtuoso is sorry to see that France has only 4% of women conductors and Europe 6%. Claire hopes that one day we will achieve parity. With this in mind, in 2020 she launched the Maestra, an international women only orchestra conductor competition!
Julia Sedefjian, chef with a successful career
We end with the youngest member of our women's team, Julia Sedefjian, who became the youngest Michelin-starred chef in France in 2016, at the age of just 21. At the head of the Parisian restaurant Baieta, (one star in the Michelin Guide), Julia flatters palates by imagining a cuisine inspired by her Mediterranean roots. Armed with two CAPs, in cooking and pastry-making, as well as a regional medal in the Best Apprentice of France competition, the teenager left Nice for Paris. She found a job as a clerk in the starred restaurant Les Fables de la Fontaine.
From then on, everything went very fast. At the age of 18, she was already sous-chef of the restaurant, then chef two years later. For the young woman, the challenge was to keep the star held by the restaurant for several years. And it worked! But Julia remains modest. She thinks that she owes this award to luck. The future will prove to her that she owes it to her talent. Five years later, Julia still shines with the same brilliance in the world of the starred chefs!