Young Québec harpist Valérie Milot, described as “very refined” artist by La Presse, Montréal, has an impeccable technique and is such a colourful and powerful musician that she challenges all the clichés about her instrument.

After receiving the “Prix avec grande distinction” and the Wilfrid-Pelletier bursary, awarded unanimously by the jury, upon completion of her studies at the Conservatoire de musique de Trois-Rivières with Caroline Lizotte, Valerie pursued her training in New York with world-renowned harpist Rita Costanzi.

Valérie has received numerous competition awards, including the prestigious Prix d’Europe 2008, becoming the first harpist in almost 100 years to receive this honour. The same year,she was named Young Soloist 2009 by the French Public Radios network, made up of Radio France, Radio Suisse Romande, RTBF Belgium and Radio-Canada.  Valérie won in November 2008 the Special Prize for best interpretation of a contemporary work (performing Glenn Buhr’s Tanzmusik) in the International harp Competition of the Cité des Arts in Paris. In January 2009, she was crowned “Discovery of the Year” at the Prix Opus gala, an event organized annually by le Conseil québécois de la musique. The same year, she was awarded the Louis-Philippe-Poisson performing arts award, by the “Grands Prix Culturels 2009” of the city of Trois-Rivières. For her prodigious career she was named Révélation Radio-Canada Musique for the year 2009-2010.

Valérie’s career as a soloist and chamber musician has been consistently rising over the past few years. She has performed with many orchestras, including Les Violons du Roy, from Quebec City she gave a recital at the Lanaudière international festival. In 2011, she performed for the first time outside Canada, in Switzerland (Geneva) and in Brazil at the Rio de Janeiro international Harp Festival. More recently, she travelled to France to take part in the CAMAC Harp Festival, in Angers. Valérie is an Artist-in-residence at the Conservatoire de musique de Trois-Rivières until the 2013-2014 season.

She has already released 4 recordings with the prestigious Canadian label Analekta, and her fifth, Watercolors, has been released in September 2012 and the next one, Christmas Fantasies, in November 2012.