Active conductor, scholar, clinician, and adjudicator, Maestro Jean-Sébastien Vallée is a rapidly rising conductor on today’s concert music stage. Mr. Vallée is Director of Choral Studies and Chair of the Conducting Area at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University in Montréal. Prior to his appointment at McGill University, he served as Director of Choral Studies at California State University in Los Angeles, and was on the choral faculty of the University of Redlands.
Ensembles under his direction have sung for the American Choral Directors Association and California Music Educators Conferences, and were awarded first and second places at the San Luis Obispo International Choral Competition in 2011. In 2015, Maestro Vallée was the runner-up for the American Prize in Choral Conducting.
Jean-Sébastien Vallée holds degrees from Université Laval, Université de Sherbrooke, University of California, Santa Cruz, and a doctorate in conducting from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
In addition to his interest in choral, operatic, and orchestra music, Jean-Sébastien Vallée is an advocate for contemporary music, making one of his priorities to premiere and commission works by young composers and program rarely performed repertoire. As a scholar, his research interests are varied and focus primarily on Renaissance French music, the oratorical works of Michael Tippett, and conducting pedagogy, more specifically the connection between audiation and gestural communication. Mr. Vallée has been invited to present his research at several national and international conferences including the American Choral Directors Association Conventions, Festival 500 in Newfoundland, Canada, the National Collegiate Choral Organization conference, Podium, the national convention of Choral Canada, and the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities.
Maestro Vallée is also founder and director of INSPIRAVI, a 20-voice Los Angeles based professional chamber choir, and artistic director of the Ottawa Choral Society. He recently conducted J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion with Ensemble Caprice, recorded with the choir of St. Andrew and St. Paul (Montréal) and the Mountainside Master Chorale (Los Angeles, and toured China to guest conduct and offer conducting masterclasses.
Upcoming activities include a residency at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in February, a second tour of China in June, and participation as clinician in the 11th International Symposium on Choral Music to be held in Barcelona in July.