About Me & FAQs

Valerie made her triumphant stage debut at age 10 as "random child" in Evita at the Media Theatre. She began participating in classes and shows at the Young People’s Theatre Workshop in Swarthmore and performed in a variety of local musicals and operettas. Some of her most vivid high school memories are playing the Witch in Into the Woods in her senior year, and getting rejected from the musical in her freshman year.

Valerie graduated Magna Cum Laude from Northwestern University with her bachelor’s in Voice Performance and a Certificate in Musical Theater. At Northwestern, she performed Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro and soloed in Augusta Read Thomas’ In my sky at twilight with the Northwestern Contemporary Music Ensemble. She completed her master’s degree in Voice Performance at the University of Tennessee where she sang Zerlina in Don Giovanni and her favorite opera role to date, Abigail in The Crucible. 

Valerie also spent time studying in Europe. She attended the Centro Studi Lirica in Novafeltria, Italy; the Opera Theater and Music Festival in Lucca, Italy; and the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland where she worked with Pierre Boulez. Currently, Valerie performs with multiple groups in the Philadelphia area. She performed Annina in La traviata and covered Amy in Little Women with OperaDelaware, and performed with the Philadelphia Singers and Curtis Opera Theater. She was the soprano soloist in the Carmina Burana with the Kennett Square Symphony. With Poor Richard’s Opera and as part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, she sang the title role in Gustav Holst’s Savitri. Other regional credits include Adele in Die Fledermaus, Papagena in Die Zauberflöte, the Page in Rigoletto, the Second Witch in Dido and Aeneas.

In 2010, Valerie joined the chorus roster of Opera Philadelphia and focused on teaching full time.