Valérie Saulnier always knew that she wanted to use music as a tool to help others. She started playing the piano and guitar at a very young age and studied vocal jazz at Cegep de Saint-Laurent and Université de Montréal. Valérie is an active musician in the Montreal musical scene and has
also been a voice teacher since 2010. Valérie became a music therapist in 2018 after completing her Graduate Diploma in Music Therapy at Concordia. She is now doing her MA in Music Therapy to learn more about advance practices.
This internship project reopened Studio St-Sulpice for Fall 2018. Goals for this Art Hive included reconnecting the studio to the community in which it is located, building a sense of community and cohesion between those who attend, and increasing the self-esteem, self-awareness, and self expresison of studio participants. Activities included painting, musical composition and improvisation, singing songs together, drawing and moving to music, making instruments, and sharing stories. Highlights of this project included the strong relationships that developed through the open studio hours, the inclusion of music therapy in the Art Hive model, and the reinstatement of a community space that has since remained open.