Conference of Valérie Milot (harp)

The creative process, the steps to get there and the innovative concerts!

Creating and producing a solo concert presents many challenges, but it’s also a unique opportunity to develop new skills and to build your identity as an artist.  Learn from Valérie Milot’s experience working on her first self-produced performance, « Orbis », an innovative combination of technology and music that was eventually shortlisted for the 2017 Opus Prize.  During this workshop, Valérie will discuss the lessons she learned and the impact of those lessons on her decision-making and on the way she now manages collaborations.  If you are an emerging musician with a flair for entrepreneurship, you will come away feeling inspired and better prepared to create your own groundbreaking and successful project.

*Please note that this conference will be given in English

About Valérie Milot

Valérie Milot is a musician with the soul of a rebel.  Full of initiative and a hard worker, Valérie places the harp centre-stage in unexpected fashions.  Valérie brings equal passion to her various roles as concertist, producer, professor and mother.

Whether through the pure tradition of classical music or through her innovative productions such as Orbis, a performance blending music and digital art, Valérie knows how to make music accessible.  The eight albums she has recorded under the Analekta label are a tangible example of her range: they extend from concertos by Mozart and Haendel with Les Violons du Roy under the baton of Bernard Labadie to a transcription of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint for electric guitar.

A sought-after soloist, Valérie performs in numerous concerts with prestigious orchestras across Canada and abroad.  Recently, Valérie played in ten concerts with the Orchestre métropolitain de Montréal under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, among others, as “Soloist in residence” for the 2016-2017 season.  She also toured with Les Violons du Roy, an ensemble with which she has had a special relationship since the start of her career, and conductor Mathieu Lussier.  The 2018-2019 season will mark her debut as a soloist with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, under the baton of Bernard Labadie.

Recognized by her peers and the public, Valérie has been awarded numerous prizes.  In 2008, she won the Prix avec Grande Distinction upon graduating from the Conservatoire, and followed this up with the prestigious Prix d’Europe.  She is in fact the first harpist in almost 100 years to have won this bursary, which enabled her to study in New York under Rita Costanzi.

Born into a Trois-Rivières family in which her childhood was filled with the music of Mozart, Valérie fell in love with the harp at an early age and was only 10 years old when she decided to devote herself to this instrument.  Nowadays, Valérie plays on an “Apollonia” harp, one of only thirteen in existence worldwide, crafted by the Italian luthier Salvi.  This instrument, noted for its exceptionally powerful and rich sound, is graciously on loan to her from the Canimex company of Drummondville (Quebec / Canada), and belonging to the patron of the arts Roger Dubois.