Camille Nelson: Mormon Musician

Camille Nelson is a classically trained violinist and acoustic guitarist. Her debut album is First Words, which was released in 2009. Can’t Stop Thinking of You was released in 2016. Her album Lead Me Home was released in 2017 and was produced by Paul Cardall. The album is a blend of folk, classical, bluegrass, and new age music in a variety of traditional LDS hymns. It debuted at number 8 on Billboard’s Classical Crossover Albums chart. One of the songs on the album is a collaboration with Alex Sharpe on a rendition of “Be Thou My Vision,” a beautiful Irish poem. Her brother Steven Sharp Nelson, the cellist of The Piano Guys, and Ryan Shupe of Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand accompany her as guest artists.

In a Deseret News interview, she spoke about the inspiration for this album:

“Every single day, I was praying and I was reading the scriptures behind the hymns I was thinking about,” Nelson said. “There were some nights that I accidentally fell asleep with my guitar in hand.”

She related with a favorite story about Thomas Edison. As an old story would have it, Edison would never go to sleep, but he would take naps. He would hold a ball in his hand, and whenever he would fall asleep, the ball would drop.

“That’s when he would wake up and would get all of his ideas,” Nelson said. “That invigorating process of waking up is when he got inspiration. In a Thomas Edison-esque way, I would wake up in the middle of the night with my hand on my guitar and it would come right away.”

In addition to recording and performing, she teaches college MBA courses in management, communication, and leadership. She holds a PhD from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.

Camille was the youngest child born to a violinist father and professional opera singer mother. She was raised in Salt Lake City and is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.