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Valerie Marie Leslie

Valerie Marie Leslie began her musical career performing on stage and screen - singing, dancing, and acting - like so many kids in the L.A. County. She spent seven years performing with the youth organization Kids of Rock Theater. They performed at Disneyland, Universal Studios, Barnsdal Theater Art Park, and many other schools and industrial venues. Her acting agent was Helen Garrett (landed an Irish Spring Commercial). She studied singing under Lorene Burgenson at the Southern California Conservatory of Music. Valerie wrote her first song at age 12, and continued to write songs throughout grade school.

Out of high school, she went onto study Music Theory with Al Gulante and Digital Media scoring with Keith Evans at Edmonds Community College in Lynnwood, WA. With an AA in hand, she transferred to Central Washington University where she received her Bachelor of Music in Theory/Composition in 1997. During those years she was commissioned as Composer and Music Director for Shadow Dancing written by Sabrina Mansfield, and a multi-media piece Painters Mood for alto flute. For the Farrell Merit Scholarship, Valerie produced a classical CD Flute For Thought that features contemporary American Composers.

After College, she put her twinkle toes to use and taught partnership dancing in Seattle at 5th Avenue Dance Studios. On the weekend she taught acting at Northwest Studios in Bellevue, WA. In 2000 she was a finalist for the first TCM Silent Film Score Contest. The summer following she was Music Director for Snoqualmie Falls Forest Theater's production of "Oliver!" and hooked up with Sabrina Mansfield again to score a graduate film short This Good Man. By fall she was Music Director and Arranger for Glenwood Elementary 's production of "Little Red Hen".

Like a gypsy, Valerie moves to Chehalis, WA to be an assistant to The Singing Weaver and direct the Chancel Choir at Chehalis United Methodist Church. She also started transcribing for the likes of Straw Into Gold and Alice Rogers. She gets engaged and moves up to Bothell for several months. During this time she records some songs and brushes up on some studio skills.

Now living in Bellingham, WA, she has arranged Christmas Carols for the Con Grazia Wind Quintet, written the theme to "special", a documentary on pug dogs (still in production), and wrote the score to a TV Pilot Reality Inc. She's teamed up with singer/songwriter Dana Lyons and is transcribing Cows With Guns: Cowpolation Song Book. Valerie does vocal recordings for songsculptor.com - Rick Brown, a local songwriter, and frequently sings backup for the alt country band, Chuckanut Drive. She hopes to keep growing as a composer.

As a footnote, Valerie's second passion is character voice-overs.