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Valerie's Music is NOW AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD on Valerie's Music STORE. Use the Music STORE tab above to get there quickly & easily!
Want to hear a sample? Simply click on the SINGLES titles to go to the clips of each song.
Two Album Sets and Singles of all the songs on the albums are available:
I WISH YOU LOVE: 11 songs for $9.00
GRAMMIE'S SONGS FOR KIDS: 8 songs for $7.00
Singles $1.00 each
MORE COMING SOON!
WELCOME to www.valerieconnelly.com . Here you will find Valerie's art, music, and books.
 THE GLOWBOX --- a beautiful illuminated box with interchangable faces of BlockArt Prints images etched in gold and silver mirrored plexiglas. The handmade box reminds the viewer of milk glass from earlier times. The images are one-of-a-kind, hand carved block prints created in the Medieval tradition and etched by laser into the mirrored material. The soft light throws no shadows, yet bathes the darkness with a soft glow that allows nighttime navigation of a room without having to turn on a bright light. Perfect for children's rooms as well, since there are no shadows to create strange shapes that can keep a child awake. Images for the holidays all year round, the seasons, florals, birds, animals, fish, scenes, and more. Available at www.glowboxgallery.com or contact Valerie using the contact form on this site to order from the artist.
 GRAMMIE'S SONGS FOR KIDS: Use the Contact Us form to the right to request your copy today!
Music is the world's universal language, and children respond early to the rhythms and melodies of songs and instrumental music of all kinds. This is a collection of original, wimsical songs composed and performed by Valerie Connelly to reflect the day-to-day life experiences of children. Songs entitled: Carrots in my Bellybutton, Alligator Pool, Halloween, Swing, Swing I love to Swing, I Went for a Walk with Grammie Today, Go to Sleep Lullaby, Diamonds in the Grass and instrumentals that are fun for dancing and generalized movement are all child tested and approved. These are fun and engaging songs that teachers, parents and grandparents can use for interactive play with children of all ages, pre-school through lower elementary grades.
BOOKS/PUBLISHING/AUTHOR
 In 2003, Valerie founded Nightengale Press, A Division of Nightengale Media LLC and has published over 100 titles so far. More are in the wings. As a book publisher, she has helped many authors from all over the US, Canada, Australia and Europe bring their books to life, and if you want more information about this revolutionary publishing firm, go to www.nightengalepress.com or www.nightengalepublishing.com for more information.
Valerie has authored four titles herself, two novels, a children’s book and a myth-busting guide to the book publishing industry. Most recently, she brought together twenty authors to develop The ART of Grandparenting, which is an anthology of letters to newbie grandparents about Loving, Spoiling, Teaching and Playing with your Grandkids, as the subtitle states.
ART
Valerie took her first and only art classes in the eighth grade. She chose to study French as an elective in high school and as a major college, and so, let her art remain a hobby. Years went by. She founded BlockArt Prints Inc, in the mid-1990’s, and created hundreds of custom-designed, hand-carved block printed images for greeting cards and note cards for Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo and Lincoln Park Zoo, American Express, NASCI, and many small and medium-sized businesses in the Chicago area. She patented the Glowbox, which is an illuminated box that holds interchangeable panels of these images. In 1999, she began painting again and in the intervening ten years, has created a large portfolio of work, STRANGER IN THE WILDERNESS, which continues to expand monthly. The GALLERY here shows the breadth of her paintings, and both originals and prints are available for sale online and directly from the artist. Commissions welcome.
RECENT WORKS: Rockisland Falls, Togolese Palm Wine Vendor, Caney Fork River, Togo Beach Houses, Commission of Family Dogs
MUSIC
From her earliest memories, Valerie has loved music. She studied piano for seventeen years, voice for five years, learned to play guitar, and has been composing songs since she was fourteen years old. She has written hundreds of copyrighted songs, ihas been a member of ASCAP since 1987, performed in Chicago and all over the Midwest, as well as in England as a young woman. Her first album was IN THE VIOLET OF THE NIGHT (1969) and sold out at the first concert. She produced another album YESTERDAY'S CHILDREN in 1987. She collaborated on and promoted a full musical (Nothing Is Ours but Time 1996), recorded two albums in the 1990’s: PICKIN' UP THE PIECES and NOTHING IS OURS BUT TIME and continues to write songs and instrumental music today. Valerie has produced three new albums: YOUNG AGAIN (2010), GRAMMIE'S SONGS FOR KIDS (2011) and THEN & NOW (2011)comprised of new songs as well as including some of the songs she wrote in the past.
EDUCATOR
Valerie started her teaching career in 1969 in Togo, West Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer. She taught English as a Second Language (ESL) there for two years. She returned to the United States, earned her Masters Degree at Northwestern University in 1981, and taught French Language and Literature from 1974 – 2005 in public high schools, middle schools and community colleges in the north-suburban area of Chicago for twenty-five years. She also taught ESL to immigrant adults in the early 2000’s. She was nominated to the Who’s Who in Education five times during her teaching career, and was elected Teacher of the Year by Phi Kappa Delta, receiving the OUTSTANDING EDUCATOR AWARD 2005, in Recognition for Extraordinary Dedication, Commitment and Service to Education.
INTERNATIONAL TRAVELER
Valerie has traveled extensively in France, Italy, England, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland, Spain, West Africa, and Iran. She traveled in England as a teen. She joined the Peace Corps and lived in Togo, West Africa right after graduating from college. She designed the first curriculum and set up a school teaching ESL in Iran in the early 1970’s before the fall of the Shah. In 1981, she founded the non-profit Overseas Alliance to take American students to France on a month-long immersion language study program which she wrote and taught. During the five years Overseas Alliance was in existence, more than eighty American youth met then President François Mitterrand, who was an acquaintance of Valerie’s from her college and Peace Corps years.
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