Before Valerie could climb up on the piano bench, she was playing the keys and making melodies. Her mother heard the ditties from one day to the next, and realized there were repeated melodies each day and some new ones each day. So, at the age of four, Valerie attended her first piano lesson with Irene Schillinger, a piano teacher who came to the home.

Valerie studied piano for seventeen years, mastering works by Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Handel, Shubert, Debussy, Ravel, Satie and many more. At thirteen, Valerie began to compose songs and to perform them at school muscial events. At fourteen, she taught herself to play guitar, and performed in local coffee houses throughout high school and in many venues in Chicago. In the summer of 1965 she toured England performing with her high school Poetry Reading Group, and appeared on CBS television's Repertory Workshop. She performed in concerts in college, and started to pursue a singing career by recording her first album. More than half the college population bought "In the Violet of the Night," which sold out in one hour after her senior concert.

After graduating in 1969, and entering the Peace Corps, Valerie left music behind for many years. Then in 1986, she began to sing in the church choir singing solos and providing music for weddings. She began to compose songs again.

By 1989, she had recorded two new albums, "Yesterday's Children" and "Pickin' Up the Pieces." In 1990 she began performing in clubs in Chicago, building her repertoire,  writing more songs and working with Bob Gibson, folk era legend, to expand her skills as a songwriter. She co-wrote the musical "Nothing Is Ours But Time," based on the William Saroyan novel, Mama I Love You, with Michael Connelly, her then husband and performance partner. In 1991, they put up a Reading for the musical at the Piven Theatre Workshop in Evanston, Illinois. As an ASCAP composer, Valerie has over 100 songs to her credit and is writing instrumentals and songs which touch on themes about life, love and the pursuit of happiness.

Now, bridging her music into the 21st century, Valerie has produced another album, YOUNG AGAIN, released on January 26, 2010. YOUNG AGAIN combines songs from the whole spectrum of her career, including her newest serious intrumentals and songs. Her music resonates with anyone who recalls first hand coming of age during the upheaval and excitement of the Sixties. Themes about the second half of life, looking forward and seeing a shorter road, philosophical and filled with imagery of nature and love, are hopeful and but tinged with an honest wistfulness, just as her earlier works were vibrant and upbeat, filled with the search for love and self-knowledge. "Only with the passage of time does the human spirit become all it was meant to be. Sometimes this process is painful, sometimes it is joyful, but it is never boring!"

"If today's music technology had been available back in the Sixties, I would never have wandered away from music. But, now, with the power of digital recording, composing on digital keyboards that bring  the whole orchestra to your fingers, I am more grateful than ever to be a pianist. The freedom the digital revolution brings to the creation of songs is unparalleled. I'll just have to come back for another lifetime, and next time, I'll stay with the music from the first to the last day with no breaks in between."