Valerie Larue - First Horn

About Valerie: After years of piano and violin lessons, Valerie succumbed to the world of Brass band at the tender and impressionable age of 13, following in the footsteps of her 2 brothers. It was during her first concert by the then Chertsey & Addlestone band and their rendition of the Padstow Lifeboat that Val decided that playing in a brass band looked like it might be good fun. There was a strong youth element so she didn’t need too much persuasion to accompany her brother to her first practice actually on Bonfire night where a suitable instrument was considered for her to play. Well this alternated between tenor horn and euphonium, whichever was available at the time. Given her smallish stature the horn seemed the better option so as well as joining the junior band Val sat in on 2nd Horn in the full band and soon entered her very first contest in the 4th section at Hammersmith Town Hall, the test piece chosen being Malcolm Arnold’s Little Suite for Brass. Although the band rehearsed in a pub, Val’s impression that brass bands were full of beer drinking old men soon diminished although she was the only girl to have her own pint mug permanently housed there! Valerie’s stint on 2nd horn was short lived and passing over the 1st horn seat was promoted to the dizzy heights of Solo horn where she remained pretty much throughout the changing times (and band name changes). It was after an invitation from Friary Guildford Band to complete the horn section for a contest at Leicester in November 2004 that Valerie experienced playing at Championship level and after a lot of consideration, deliberation and soul searching joined Friary at the beginning of 2005. Away from band there is nothing Val enjoys more than donning her walking boots and trekking over the hills and fells. Proudest/happiest moments: Winning the Best Instrumentalist Award at Watford and Soloist prizes at Crawley and Epsom or perhaps it was competing at the area finals at Wembley Saddest moment: Witnessing the demise of a band that had become an extension of her family Moment Val would choose to forget: Depping on a marching job only to find at the end that she had odd shoes on! The only similarity was that they were both black!!