Sophie Verbaeys-Reid
Singer, vocal coach
Biography
Photo credit: ©Philippe Quevauviller
Sophie's grandmother was a singer. A dramatic soprano. It is said that she was delighted to hear Sophie scream so loudly in the first months of her life, saying "she has a good voice, the little one" and the family were quick to say that she had inherited it from her. If it wasn't her voice that she passed on to her, it certainly awakened her ear. Between her grandmother's songs and her father's instrumental music, Sophie's ear developed fast and she went from crying as a baby to chirping and singing.
Sophie has been singing for as long as she can remember. Fortunately, her parents were smart enough to give her reading, writing and singing talents free rein. Sent on a musical journey by her mother's records (Piaf, Brel, Brassens, Aufray, Clapton, Streisand, ... ), Sophie tried to imitate these voices and made those around her laugh and smile. One voice among others seduced her: that of Ella Fitzgerald. A warm voice, with a range that has never been equalled; the joy, spontaneity, and overflowing life of Ella's voice bewitched Sophie. The tone was set and she had found the voice that set the tone for the future.
Over the years, singing and writing became Sophie's favourite way of expressing her sorrows and difficulties, as well as her joys, happiness, discoveries and celebrations... Everything was a pretext for putting it into words, especially singing. Singing allowed her to (re)find inner peace. Although Sophie has always been driven by her voice and words (participating in and leading shows, birthdays, weddings and other private celebrations, training and professional conferences), it was only in 2008 that she had a first taste of working with a music group and decided to 'work on her voice'.
In 2011, she decided to make the voice the common thread of her profession. While immersing herself in learning vocal techniques, she refined her personal development coaching through the spoken and sung voice. Today, Sophie is a coach specialising in physical, vocal and verbal communication, both individually and in groups, and is also a therapist through the art of the voice and listening. The voice without the ear is not the same.
At the beginning of 2013, she tried her hand at jazz by joining a big band as lead singer. Since then, she has never let go! Jazz allows her to let her voice soar to new horizons. She experiments with what she admired so much in Ella. Sophie trains, informs and reinvents herself... Jazz intrigues and fascinates her almost as much as the voice. From 2015 to 2018, she led a sextet. Today, she is active as a singer in a piano-vocal duo (SoDa Jazz Duet) and as a member of a vocal trio (The Carmine Sisters). For her, music is fun, play, creativity, learning, sharing and jazz is a great expression of this!
It is with great joy that she joined the Pataphysique Orchestra in October 2022, after having sung in chorus on the album Brassens dans tous ses états in 2020.