Valérie Sainte-Agathe has prepared and conducted the Grammy Award-winning San Francisco Girls Chorus since 2013, including performances with renowned ensembles such as the Philip Glass Ensemble, The Knights, Kronos Quartet, New Century Chamber Orchestra, Voices of Music, TENET Vocal Artists, the San Francisco Symphony, and San Francisco Opera.

Through transformative choral music training, education, and performance, Sainte-Agathe empowers young singers and champions the music of today throughout the choral world. Recent commissions by Theresa Wong, Angélica Negrón, Pamela Z, Susie Ibarra, Cava Menzies, and Matthew Welch continue to build upon SFGC’s legacy of creating and presenting new repertoire for treble chorus.

Sainte-Agathe joins Philharmonia Baroque as its new chorale director in 2022. In the 2020-2021 season, Sainte-Agathe joined forces with GRAMMY Award-winning Kronos Quartet to conduct the world premiere of At War With Ourselves—400 Years of You by Michael Abels throughout the U.S. including the west coast premiere at SFJAZZ with SFGC’s Premier Ensemble. She served as artist in residence in choral conducting at the University of the Pacific’s Conservatory of Music in Stockton, CA, and was guest chorus director with San Francisco Symphony for a program featuring works of Brahms conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann. Later this fall, she will be the guest conductor for new music ensemble Volti, creating pieces by Caroline Shaw and Pamela Z. In February 2018, she made her Carnegie Hall debut with the Philip Glass Ensemble, conducting with Michael Riesman in Glass’s Music with Changing Parts.

Sainte-Agathe served as music director for the Young Singers program of the Montpellier National Symphony and Opera in France from 1998-2011. In this capacity, she trained young singers for opera and symphony concerts and productions. She participated in eight recordings with the Montpellier National Orchestra and The Radio France Festival.