“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.”
John Cage (composer)

Valérie Milot is a musician and entrepreneur who walks an unconventional career path. Championing her instrument into the spotlight, she reinvents the harp and its clichés, putting forth its powerful sound and astonishing colours.

A sought-after soloist, Valérie regularly performs a rich solo repertoire with prestigious orchestras (Les Violons du Roy, Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal) and with reputed conductors (Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Bernard Labadie, Nicolas Ellis, Mathieu Lussier, Jean-François Rivest, amongst others). An active musician online, her YouTube channel boasts over three million views.

2022 marks the addition of two albums to an already vast catalogue: Canzone di Notte, featuring a duo with the coloratura soprano Marianne Lambert (Fidelio) and Transfiguration, a collaboration with the cellist Stéphane Tétreault (ATMA Classique), as well as participating in many recordings and chamber music concerts. 

Following in the footsteps of the avant-garde project Orbis (2016-2020), Transfiguration is an equally ambitious production, uniting both music and visual arts in a singular experience. Its tour will officially commence in the spring of 2022, following a premiere at Bourgie Hall in Montreal.

Proactive and passionate, Valérie founds Anémone 47 in 2016, an organization which enables the production of one-of-a-kind concerts for touring in Quebec and abroad. Valérie also possesses her own music publication company, as well as overseeing a diverse array of production activities. 

Valérie is regularly invited to sit on juries at several reputed music competitions and often hosts conferences, sharing her broad experience as a musician and producer. She also was chosen as the artistic director of the Future Stars’ Grand Premiere, the Fondation de la Place des Arts’ annual benefit event, for the 2021 and 2022 editions.

An eager pedagogue, Valérie is a professor of harp and chamber music at the Montreal Conservatory of Music. She is also the instigator of the Harpenning series, featuring concerts and workshops aiming to increase the discoverability of the harp and its various facets.

Widely recognised by her peers and by the public, her path is interspersed with numerous awards. In 2008, she unanimously receives her Prix avec Grande Distinction upon completion of her studies at the Montreal Conservatory of Music, under the guidance of Caroline Lizotte. Immediately thereafter, she is awarded the Prix d’Europe, the first harpist to win the prize in almost a century. This esteemed award allows her to further her studies with Rita Costanzi in New York. Her accomplishments continue thereafter: she is named Révélation Radio-Canada, along with being awarded the Prix d’interprétation at the Concours International de harpe de la Cité des Arts de Paris, the Opus Award for the Découverte de l’année, the Création arts de la scène Prize at the Arts Excellence de Culture Mauricie Gala, as well as multiple nominations at the ADISQ Gala.

Valérie plays on an “Apollonia” harp by Salvi, graciously loaned to her by the Canimex company of Drummondville and belonging to the patron of the arts Roger Dubois.

© Élise Rivard / Stéphane Tétreault 2022