Valerie Little

Pennsylvania native Valerie Little became a tenured member of the Minnesota Orchestra in September 2015 after serving six seasons as acting assistant principal librarian.

Also a violist, Little has often performed with the Minnesota Orchestra, Minnesota Opera, Minneapolis Pops, Orchestra Iowa, Florestan Chamber Music, Ninebark Ensemble, Apollo Music Festival and on the Schubert Club’s Courtroom Concerts series. She is also an eight-time MPR Class Notes Artist, and a past teaching artist for Schubert Club, Chamber Music Society of St. Cloud, and Britt Festival in Jacksonville, Oregon.

Little holds bachelor’s degrees in viola performance and English from Penn State University, a master of music degree in viola performance from the University of Texas-Austin, and a doctor of musical arts degree in viola performance from the University of Minnesota.

Outside of music, Little studied creative writing at Penn State and through a graduate program at University of Pennsylvania. Her work has been featured in over a dozen journals and on Minnesota Public Radio. Two of her non-fiction pieces were nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize and in 2022, her debut chapbook, Little Blue Primer, was one of seven finalists for the 16th Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Poetry. She also is pursuing studies in Mortuary Science and currently serves at two funeral homes and a crematory in the Twin Cities area.