Duo Akmi

The Art et Musique de Sierre committee is offering you the opportunity to attend a performance by the Akmi Duo.

Valentine Michaud was born in Paris in 1993 and studied saxophone and piano in Nantes before moving to Switzerland at the age of 16. In 2013 she obtained a bachelor's degree in saxophone from the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne in Pierre-Stéphane Meugé's class, alongside a bachelor's degree in musicology from the Université de la Sorbonne in Paris. She continued her training with a second master's degree as a soloist at the Zürcher Hochschule der Kunste. It was there that she met the sparkling Lithuanian-born pianist Akvilé Šileikaitė, who was doing her master's degree in accompaniment.
A rich musical and personal friendship was born.
In 2019, the AKMI Duo received the prestigious Swiss Ambassador Award, following first prize in the Orpheus Swiss Music Chamber Competition in 2018.
The duo appears regularly on stage in Switzerland and abroad and has been invited to many music festivals and events in Europe.
Valentine and Akmilé are passionate about modern and contemporary music, played with undisguised joy. They have created a repertoire that is wide and varied, ranging from sonatas to tango, with composers from countries as diverse as Lithuania and the USA. Both enjoy successful careers as soloists alongside their commitment as duettists, and have won numerous awards in international competitions.
The duo celebrated their debut album ‘Beyond the Wall’ in November 2023 for Avie Records.