By the time Montreal-born, Toronto-raised Stevie Vallance was 19, she had performed her way across eastern Canada with The Charlottetown Festival, graduated from The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, New York and at age 20, while fronting a band in Los Angeles, a CBS executive heard her and offered her the recurring role of recording artist, 'Sylvie', on the long-running series, Knots Landing. Over the next 16 years, it was Stevie's regular and starring roles in landmark productions such as Night Heat, The Ropers, Three Men & A Baby, Lou Grant, LA Law, Road to Avonlea and King of Kensington that honed her ability to craft 'fully realised' characters; a talent that the artist employs when reinterpreting Jazz standards in her own inimitable way. Each song becomes a 'story'.
"Songs are lucky when Stevie Vallance sings them." -- Ross Porter
"Stevie Vallance -- here's a vocalist with something to say and a sensational way of saying it." -- Jurgen Gothe
In 1995, Stevie moved to Bowen Island, BC where she met Michael Creber (piano/k.d.Lang) and in 1998, they recorded Stevie's debut jazz cd, Practically Naked, reviewed by one critic as "an unforgettable piece of music history, sung with a warmth and grace that sends shivers down the spine."
On her second cd, Always (A Salute to Patsy Cline), released in 1999, inspiration came from Stevie's one-woman portrayal of the legendary country singer, with whom Vallance coincidentally shares the same birthday. Stevie toured the show in western Canada, for six years, and opened for the Calgary Stampede in 1999.
Motivated by the devastating loss of a close personal friend, Stevie conceived the critically acclaimed Divas For Life jazz benefit concerts that raised $70,000 for people living with life-threatening illness. In addition to producing two “standing room only” concerts at Vancouver’s Vogue Theatre, in 2001 & 2002, Stevie also negotiated a national distribution deal for the 'live' CD, which was released as part of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival line-up and Stevie was presented with Friends for Life’s Philanthropy Award.
"Vallance's voice sounds fabulous... mature, well recorded, comfortable, sexy...", says Paul Grant (CBC Radio), of Stevie's NEW cd, released in February, 2008. Make My Night is arranged by Pat Coleman (guitar) and features many heavy hitters from the Canadian Jazz scene: Ross Taggart (piano), Mike Herriot (trumpet), Tom Colclough (sax), Buff Allen (drums) and Miles Hill (bass). Make My Night offers smooth renditions of popular jazz standards, as well as original songs by Vancouver based composers such as Jim Vallance.
Animation:
Vallance continues to excel in the animation field, currently serving as Voice Director on Teletoon's hit show Best Ed, as well as voice-producing 2007 Emmy Nominee Growing Up Creepie. Stevie earned the moniker 'Cartoon Queen' for her prolific work infusing life and personality into characters on thousands of animated productions including 'Mouse' on Reboot, 'Whazzat' on Zoobilee Zoo, 'Share Bear' on the Carebears movies, 'Dixie' on Donkey Kong, 'Natsuko Fuji' on Inuyasha, ‘GLADIS’ on Totally Spies, 'Gnat' on Creepie, 'Party' on the Popples and presently, 'Tigrerra' on Bakugan. In 2002, she received an EMMY Award for directing the dialogue and music vocals for the beloved Disney classic, MADELINE, for which she also portrayed the voices of 'Miss Clavel', the nun, and 'Genevive', the dog. Tooned In! is Stevie's incredibly fun Animation Acting Workshop.
"Your contributions as a voice talent and singer would be more than sufficient to earn praise, but your gifts as a voice and music director are exceptional." - Stan Phillips, Madeline, DIC
Coming up:
• A Canadian Tour with David Warrack and Stevie Vallance, 3 Davids is a jazzy cabaret-style revue comprised of songs written by David Frishberg, David Shire, David Warrack and Richard Maltby.
• An Art Gallery showing of Stevie's late aunt who studied under Arthur Lismer. A select group of Vivien Kershaw's landscape oil paintings of the Southampton/Port Elgin area (dating back to the 1960’s), will be featured in the upper gallery of the Southampton Art Gallery, Aug 1 - Sept 1.