When Valerie was in sixth grade, her school principal asked her if she would like to study the violin. Puzzled by this out-of-the-blue suggestion, she at first declined. But after giving it some thought, she decided to take him up on his offer. After all, her father already had a violin at home gathering dust, and she already played some piano. It turned out that the principal had confused Valerie with her violin-playing friend, a mistake that would ultimately change her life. Four years later, her high school orchestra teacher hand-picked her to transfer to the viola, so that she would be able to lead that section after a year of preparation. The plan worked, and in her senior year, Valerie was made principal violist of her high school, was assistant principal in the Suffolk County SCMEA orchestra, won the Performing Arts Award from Lincoln Center, and toured Europe as part of the American Youth Symphony, playing as assistant principal. In college, Valerie played viola with the Elmira, NY city orchestra (again as assistant principal) for three years, and did a lot of free-lancing. Once out of college, she again toured, this time with the American Youth Chamber Orchestra, when they went to Great Britain. She began a 12-year career as a self-employed music and dance teacher, training dozens of students throughout Long Island on the violin, viola, piano and organ, and in Scottish Highland dance. For a few years, she studied Scottish fiddling and did a little competing, once placing as high as third in the Northeast Championships. She has played in the pit orchestra for more musicals and church programs than she can remember. She played with the Sagtikos Orchestra until it disbanded, and subsequently joined the West Islip Symphony Orchestra in 1980, where she has been principal or assistant principal violist for many of the intervening years. (She is also responsible for writing their program notes.) Valerie is a member of the Long Island String Festival Association, and has earned her New York Music teacher certification (to go along with those in Elementary Education and Spanish), three British teaching/judging certifications in Highland dance, and a Ph.D. in Performing Arts, which reflects her interests not only in music, but a deep involvement with ethnic dance as well. She was recently asked to join WISE, where she has already shown her flexibility and musicality in covering both violin and viola parts.

When not involved with her music, Valerie can be found at Scottish cultural events (she runs the dance competition at the Long Island Highland Games), doing her radio show on WUSB-FM, tutoring students in Spanish, or at her full-time job as chairperson of the Foreign Language department at the Long Island School for the Gifted.