Pianist Valerie Dueck grew up in Kleefeld, Manitoba on a street that housed an internationally renowned soprano and two leading vocal conductors. Given the neighbourhood, a career in vocal accompanying seemed an entirely rational choice.

Now an internationally active pianist, art song specialist and opera coach, Valerie has distinguished herself as a solo and collaborative performer while living on three continents.

Valerie has prepared young singers and professionals in roles for such companies as Opera NUOVA, Wiener Staatsoper, Seattle Opera and Houston Grand Opera. She has been employed by the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, the Grand Thèâtre de Genève, Thirteen Strings in Ottawa, Schlosstheater Schönbrunn in Vienna and the Conservatoire de musique de Genève, and has been invited to perform in various festivals including the Music and Beyond festival in Ottawa, the Five Boroughs Music Festival in New York, les Fêtes de musique in Lausanne and Geneva, and three successive tours of China. Her performances have been broadcast by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Kazakh National Television.

Engaged as piano professor for the Conservatoire de musique de Genève, Valerie has also taught at the International School of Geneva, the University of Ottawa, Carleton University, the Manitoba Conservatory of Music and Art, and Haileybury Astana.

Valerie has partnered with the Association for Opera in Canada, Ensembl’Arts’ Digital Paths program and the National Arts Centre as a mentor, as well as the Canadian Federation of Music Teachers’ Associations, the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy and the International Keyboard Collaborative Arts Society as an invited guest speaker.

Valerie is currently an Artist-In Residence for East Chamber Music's Art Song Labs for Emerging Composers, as well as ensemble-in-residence at the Conservatoire de musique et d’art dramatique de Québec together soprano Hélène Brunet. In 2020, Valerie created the online live interview series Well-Tempered Bernadette: A Piano’s Tale of 5 Cities for which she received a Canada Council for the Arts grant. Valerie and her new piano, Minerva, are currently living in Ottawa.