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Valerie
Bastien is a
musician at heart and an educator by choice.
Formerly trained as a classical singer,
she obtained her Baccalaureate
in Fine Arts (Specialization Music Performance) from Concordia
University in 1998. She
also studied classical guitar at Vanier
College. If you
have ever set foot in
the Old Montreal during the mid-nineties, you might have heard her
coloratura
voice resonate throughout Place Jacques-Cartier
where she was once
regularly performing opera arias as a street artist.
Valerie moved to
Toronto not long after and put her music projects on hold to reorient
her
career. She
graduated from University
of Ottawa in 2003 with a second Baccalaureate in Education. She has since been
teaching at the
elementary level, currently for the Toronto District School Board. Her focus is on languages
(French Immersion)
and the arts. Her
contributions in
these areas include working in collaboration with Chenelière
Education in
creating the serie “Quelle aventure!” on extreme
sports targeting the interest
of young male readers. In
2005, Valerie
published a teacher’s guide and resources entitled:
“Y paraît que…”. This
complete unit for grade 7 and 8 French Immersion students is entirely
based on
the Television
Franco-Ontarienne’s
web animated Canadian legends of the same title.
It provides fun but challenging
activities
integrating Languages (French), Technology, Visual Arts, Drama and
History.
Faced with the demands of raising her
voice
constantly to address her class, a bunch of energetic students, Valerie
started
struggling with vocal difficulties a couple years ago.
This was obviously of a great concern to
her
as singing is her passion.
In an
effort to terminate her health issues, she dived back into her research
of
vocal techniques. After
realizing that
vocal problems were in fact quite common within the teaching community,
she was
inspired to create the seminar “Voice Yourself in the
Classroom!”. Her
workshop is directly intended to meet
the vocal needs of teachers. It
offers
strategies to find one’s natural dynamic speaking voice: a
voice that will
project easily, feel good, sound great and of course last. Valerie is
currently working on a follow up
book and CD. Go to www.voiceyourselfintheclassroom.com
for more information and online advices. She
is currently accepting voice students in the Toronto (ON, Canada)
area.
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Thank you for taking the time to visit this
website. Please sign
our guess book and spread the word about Valerie's music!
"There
is only one moral, love; there is only one praise, beauty; there is
only one truth, there is only one path."
-Hazrat
Inayat Khan
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