Valerie Walton

Valerie Walton has been performing in the New England area for over 40 years as a freelance flute, sax and clarinet player. She has enjoyed playing in a variety of ethnic dance bands and traveling to Venezuela, Columbia, the French Caribbean, and Paris. She has been a band leader, providing jazz, classical and popular music for functions and concerts for her entire career.  In addition to co-producing one CD under her own name, “Exactly Like You”, she has appeared on over a dozen recordings of local artists. She has been a private woodwind instructor for over 30 years in various after-school music programs and at the Winchester Community Music School.  She taught music history and music theory at the Bristol Community College, jazz ensembles at the John Payne Music Center and general music at private and public schools. She presented a workshop at the IAJE conference on young women in jazz education. One of her passions is saxophone quartet and she co-lead the Atlantic Sax Quartet which performed at concerts and school presentations.  She has performed with a wide variety of big bands such as The Brandeis Jazz Big Band with Ricky Ford and the New England Conservatory and Boston Conservatory big bands. She received a Bachelor of Music in Flute Performance at Berklee College of Music, and a Master of Music in Jazz Sax Performance at the New England Conservatory. Instructors include Matt Marvuglio, Joe Viola, Joe Allard, Ken Radnofsky, Billy Pierce, Charlie Banacos, Jimmy Guiffre, Jerry Bergonzi, and John McNeil.  She has completed Levels I and II of Orff Schulwerk.

At present Valerie is teaching saxophone and sax ensemble at the Winchester Community Music School, the Manchester Community Music School, and the Merrimack Valley Community Music School. She performs regularly on saxophone with her husband jazz guitarist Tad Hitchcock, with the  Back Roads Blues Band and a variety of freelance gigs.. She is also executive director of  the Merrimack Valley Community Music School, where she works tirelessly to bring more music opportunities to the Merrimack Valley. She is a recent recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council artists grant.