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Valerie Little

Assistant Principal Librarian

Pennsylvania native Valerie Little became a tenured member of the Minnesota Orchestra in September 2015 after serving six seasons as acting assistant principal librarian. When she's not in the library, she has enjoyed serving on various Orchestra committees and hosting pre-concert talks.

Also an accomplished violist, Little has often performed with the Minnesota Orchestra, Minnesota Opera, Orchestra Iowa, Florestan Chamber Music and on the Schubert Club’s Courtroom Concerts series. She is an artist in residence for over ten years at the annual Apollo Music Festival in Houston, Minnesota. 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 co-founded Ninebark Ensemble, a mixed chamber ensemble that just finished a successful first season of performing and coaching at fourteen area school districts, as well as appearing on several regional recital series.

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.

Little studied creative writing at Penn State and the University of Pennsylvania. Two of her non-fiction pieces were nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize. In 2022, her debut chapbook, Little Blue Primer, was one of seven finalists for the 16th Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Poetry.

A book recommendation from Valerie: “Suki Kim’s Without You, There Is No Us is a brilliant non-fictional account of a journalist who goes uncover as an instructor at a North Korean boarding school for elite young men.”