Valerie Naranjo

Valerie Naranjo (born October 10, 1958), is a percussionist, musicologist, professor, and member of the Saturday Night Live Band. She specializes in the music and percussive instruments of West Africa, particularly the gyil and also excels at the marimba. She has been a touring musician, played with Broadway productions, and composed film scores.

Early life and education
Naranjo was born in Los Angeles. Both parents were Native American, her father was a member of the Southern Utetribe and her mother had Navajo heritage. Music was an important part of her community and her childhood experience and she started playing piano in high school. Starting her university studies at the University of Colorado, she took a class with a Ghanaian instructor and first learned of West African keyboard percussion and the gyil. She transferred to the University of Oklahoma and majored in Vocal and Instrumental Music Education. After graduating, she moved to New York City and later pursued a graduate degree at Ithaca College, studying with Gordon Stout.

Career
In New York, Naranjo made many opportunities to establish herself as a working musician. She played her 7-foot marimba in the subway system (which resulted in at least two bookings in off-Broadway plays.) She also freelanced and built connections in a wide and active group of musicians in the city that led to work such as touring Europe with The Philip Glass Ensemble between 1988 and 1993. Other performance experience from the first half of the 1990s included work with Ulali, Richard Barone, and David Byrne. She also traveled to and spent time living in South Africa and Zimbabwe where she immersed herself in learning new rhythms and about pacing during energetic percussion performances. (In the late 80s, she had also spent time in Ghana, solidifying her love for and expertise with the gyil.)

After working on The Tempest with director Julie Taymor, Naranjo was asked to be a part of The Lion King in 1996. She was an important part of the creation of the show's sound: selecting instruments to be included in the show's orchestra, auditioning musicians, and helping to write the musical arrangements. Naranjo has performed with The Lion King for over 25 years and it is the highest grossing Broadway musical of all time.

Around the same time she was establishing the percussive sound of The Lion King, an old friend and musical collaborator, Lenny Pickett, who she met playing music with Philip Glass, asked Naranjo to join the Saturday Night Live Band in 1995. Pickett looked to her to bring lively percussive and fresh sounds to the show during a time the show was struggling to maintain its audiences. She works alongside Shawn Pelton, a drummer, in the band. Her instrument set-up consists of two mallet instruments as well as chime trees, woodblocks, cymbals, congas, bongos, djembe, kpanlogo drum, timbales, and a variety of shakers, among other instruments.

Since 2011, Naranjo has taught in the New York University Steinhardt School's percussion department. She directs the African Gyil and Percussion Ensemble there.

Naranjo has performed at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and The White House and was named World Music Percussionist of the Year in 2005 and 2008 by Drum! magazine reader poll.