Valeria Conte

 
Musician & designer

Besides a great interest and experience in free improvisation, Valeria has a deep passion for Jewish and Eastern European musical traditions. Since 2006, she has been researching Klezmer melodies, Yiddish songs and Hasidic singing repertoire, looking especially at the connection between music and culture. She has also been collaborating and cooperating with multicultural projects inspired by or based on Middle-Eastern musical traditions.

She graduated in 2015 with a GLOMAS MA's degree in Global Music at the Royal Academy of Music of Århus/Aalborg (Denmark) after completing the Italian classical music education with a BA in 2010 from the Music Conservatory of Adria, ”A. Buzzolla”. In 2003, Valeria also earned a BA in applied textile arts at the Institute of Arts of Venice (Italy), cooperating then for a decade with Fiorella Gallery. She is currently working on her design projects inspired by Jewish mysticism and combining hevruta methodology with a creative process.

Valeria has taken part in several collaborations in Scandinavia, Europe, and Israel. She is actively working within the educational area as well as the performative one, especially within multidisciplinary and multicultural settings.

She is currently living in Stockholm (Sweden), where she is leading the Klezmer - Jewish Instrumental Music and, until Spring 2024, the Jewish Music: Ensemble & Song courses at Paideia Folkhögskola, the first and only school for adult education with a Jewish profile in Sweden. She also holds lectures and workshops for Paideia - The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden and sometimes cooperates with Stockholm's Jewish Community (Judiska Församlingen i Stockholm) and the Swedish Klezmer Association (Svenska Klezmerföreningen).

She performs traditional and original Klezmer and Yiddish repertoires with her band, Valeria's Klezmer Chariot, and she is the organiser and leader of the OAKJS - Open-Air Klezmer Jam Sessions - Stockholm.