In 1997, Valarie premiered Before the Storm for accordion at Brady Street Dance Center, collaborating in a trio with choreographer Joan Amaral and actor Kike Adedeji. Later in the year, Valarie performed this composition as a duet with Japanese dancer Yoshiaki Tatemichi. Current compositions include many new works for accordion, one commemorating Isadora Duncan's professional entry into the dance world in Hungary for performance at the Mary Sano Studio of Duncan Dancing in San Francisco.

Valarie has performed solo and in a variety of ensembles, including the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival with Adele Neri and in the orchestras and bands of many community musical theatre groups. At Italian Festa '97 at Jack London Square, she played accordion with one of San Francisco's great entertainers, Domenic Saso. She is very fortunate now to have the opportunity to play in two of composer/performer/conductor Joe Smiell's accordion ensembles and to learn from him. Valarie continues to perform and recently started her own accordion ensemble to perform her compositions.

Valarie began playing accordion at age 5. Her early accordion experiences included playing in a basement band of over 50 accordionists and playing in the back of a pick-up truck with 6 or 7 other accordionists for the local Holy Days parade!

Public school music programs were in full swing during Valarie's elementary and junior high school days. This gave her the chance to sing in the glee clubs and to play clarinet and bass clarinet in a variety of school bands, orchestras, and musicals. Valarie played on TV with the Bancroft Junior High School orchestra and guest conductor Arthur Fiedler, who visited the annual Summer Music Workshop program offered by the San Leandro Unified School District.

In Southern California, Valarie taught herself piano. She also learned to play the saxophone from Kate McLaine, who toured the U.S. with her own group as a teenager in the 50's. Composition came into Valarie's life when she moved back to the Bay Area in 1986.  Having spent her many years in college studying other subjects, Valarie took all the music classes she could at CCSF. Here she studied with Jerry Mueller, who encouraged her as a composer.

Anthony Braxton was a major influence in Valarie's growth as a composer and instrumentalist while a graduate student at Mills College, where she earned her MA in Music Composition. Valarie received many Hellman scholarships for private flute, clarinet, and composition instruction at Mills. She was fortunate to play in Anthony Braxton's exciting ensembles, performing his challenging avant garde creative music. It was a great honor that Anthony Braxton selected her to join him in his saxophone duet to open the Thornhill Ensembles 1990 Concert.

In 1989,Valarie composed the music for the musical, Resistance. In addition to producing the work and co-authoring the script, she rehearsed and conducted the 12-piece band and the 22-person chorus. Valarie also composed the Irish style music for The Gloaming, Oh My Darling, a play by Megan Terry performed at UC Berkeley in 1988, and If You Ignore It, It Will Go Away, a play by Sharon Harrington produced at Fort Mason in San Francisco in 1991.

Valarie Morris has created the music and words for many shorter theatrical pieces, including As Almost Anyone, Eggs (one of her humorous works), and Bilderdijk Straat. In this last composition, she interwove poetry inspired by a visit to Amsterdam. Her tape compositions (sound effects, music, and words) are The Hatbox, ZooScapes, The Operating Room, and Howard's Story.

In 1989, Valarie produced CircumVention, a collection of compositions narrated by a dazzling Princess of Ceremonies, Kike Adedeji. Collaboration with choreographers and dramatists took the work to another dimension. The next year, Valarie released CircumVention, a studio recording of the compositions from the production. This album includes a piano solo, a flute duet, a clarinet trio, several clarinet quartets, a 10-piece ensemble composition, and a saxophone quartet, Full Moon. This quartet highlights Anthony Braxton's innovative solos as lead alto.

For many years after graduating from Mills College, Valarie was a member of MOSAIC, a group of women composers who put on a series of concerts several times a year. She also composed for groups where she was a performing member. This included Clarinoya (an eclectic clarinet quartet), The Whitehouse Saxophone Quartet (a classical group), Five Winged Bird (a jazz saxophone quintet), and many groups experimenting with various types of improvisation.

Valarie has composed for and produced multimedia performances involving computers, including the 1996 Awards Banquet for the Society of Technical Communication. She has also been a guest on several Bay Area radio programs that have aired her music. Reviews of her electronic music album TransFormations are available on her web site.

You can read Valarie's articles about women composers and performers in Strings Magazine and The Mills Quarterly. On her web site are some of her writings about English composer/conductor/activist Ethyl Smyth.

Valarie is currently working on her third album, which includes accordion music, sax ensembles, and pieces for voice and piano. She has just completed her first work for orchestra, Symphony of Light and Shadows.

Valarie also teaches accordion and other music classes at the Orinda Community Center.

She is now accepting new students. For information about private music instruction or upcoming workshops, please call 510.222.8442 or 510.222.6672.