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Valerie Orth

Valerie Orth

Songwriting

Valerie Orth is a music producer, songwriter, and activist. Self possessed and fierce, Valerie’s path is multi-faceted and spans across many genres. Finding home on stage at age 5, Valerie performed consistently for 15 years in musical theater. While attending Tufts University, she hung around the radio station, improvising over DJ’s beats. Wanting to accompany herself, she picked up guitar. She moved to San Francisco, became a righteous singer/songwriter, independently released 4 albums, and toured with her rock band. Valerie found home again when she moved to NYC and rooted herself in the female beatmaking scene, where she learned, performed, and eventually started teaching electronic music production. She also wrote and produced for Warner Chappell Music Publishing and other music houses.

Valerie is now an Assistant Professor in the Songwriting Department at Berklee College of Music, teaching music technology and production. She is the recipient of the Berklee Faculty Fellowship 2022-2023 for Palestine Beats, Palestine’s first songwriting, music production, and Nonviolent Communication program, which Valerie designed and teaches.

Previous educator and activist roles include co-leading the NYC chapter of Beats By Girlz, teaching Ableton Live to often economically-disadvantaged girls, trans, gender-expansive and non-binary youth. Valerie also developed and ran beatmaking intensives at various high schools, was a songwriting mentor for the Stuttering Association for Youth in NYC, and co-founded Song Camp, a music production and songwriting virtual camp that focuses on building co-writing, collaboration and communication skills.