Adrienne Torf Music
Welcome to my website!
Your interest in my music means a lot to me.
From this site you can purchase, download or stream my recordings, find out about upcoming and recent performances, download photos, listen to podcasts, watch videos, and read reviews of some of my recent projects. You can also join me in advocacy and activism by supporting some of my favorite organizations.
Upcoming Events
2025 promises to be full of music and theater projects. The latest news is that I plan to record a new solo CD, with the irrepressibly delightful and deeply musical Barbara Higbie in the producer role. It should be out in time for the May 2025 “Four Pianists” performances with Mary Watkins, Tammy L Hall, Barbara Higbie and me sharing the bill!
– Look for my next performance with poetry collective Voices of the Revolution at the National Women’s Music Festival in Madison, WI. Leading up to National, I’ll do a preview solo Zoom set.
– After award-winning productions in Washington DC, “Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience” is slated for a full run in Los Angeles late in the year, followed by a week in the Bay Area.
– In the midst of it all, I continue to compose a piece about incarcerated women for a DC-based opera company and plans are in the works for a new production of The Awesome Difficult Work of Love, a community participation spoken word and music performance, in Flint, MI in late 2025/early 2026.
As for the political environment we’re entering, I favor the “strong back, soft front” approach: fight like hell for those we love and connect like hell across an ever-expanding beloved community. Here’s hoping my music helps to sustain you through it all.
Four Pianists Mary Watkins, Barbara Higbie, Tammy L Hall, and Adrienne Torf
- Saturday, May 24, 2025 – Occidental Center for the Arts, Occidental, CA 7:00 p.m.
- Sunday, May 25, 2025 – Freight & Salvage, Berkeley, CA 7:00 p.m.
National Women’s Music Festival, Madison WI
- Saturday, June 14, 2025 – NWMF Zoom set 5:00-7:00 p.m. PT (7:00-9:00 p.m. CT)
- Thursday, July 3rd, 2025 – NWMF w/ Voices of the Revolution
About Adrienne
Adrienne Torf began studying piano and music theory at the age of three. Her musical life since then has included accompanying theater and dance companies, touring and recording with singers Holly Near, Linda Tillery, Ferron, Cris Williamson, and Meg Christian, and most significantly, a nineteen-year collaboration with African-American poet, essayist, and activist June Jordan. Together they wrote numerous works for voice and music, a selection of which is on their COLLABORATION CD, and the full-length stage musical/documentary opera “Bang Bang Uber Alles”.
Adrienne’s recordings include two solo albums of original compositions for piano and synthesizers, Brooklyn From the Roof (1986) and Two Hands Open (2003), both recognized as “best of” in the year of their release by the National Association of Independent Record Distributors, and June Jordan and Adrienne Torf Collaboration: Selected Works, 1983-2000 (2003). Her keyboard work also appears on more than twenty other commercially released albums.
Adrienne’s community-collaboration performance piece “The Awesome Difficult Work of Love” has been produced in Madison, Wisconsin (2008), San Francisco, California (2012) and Sedona, Arizona (2022). Also in 2022, Adrienne co-developed the theater piece Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience with Raymond O. Caldwell at Theater Alliance / IN Series in Washington D.C.; the show was awarded the 2023 Helen Hayes Theater Washington Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical Adaptation and was reprised for a four-week run in 2024.
Adrienne also serves as a consulting CFO and board member for numerous progressive nonprofit arts, media and social justice organizations.
My Music
Streaming or Download
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Band Camp
Apple
Amazon
CDs to Purchase
Past Events
September 8, 2024 – Provincetown, MA
An Evening of Music for Reproductive Justice with Adrienne Torf and special guests: James Jackson Jr., Suede, and Sallie Tighe
- To benefit the Byllye Avery Professorship in Sexual and Reproductive Justice, the first in the nation.
June 2nd – June 23rd, 2024, Washington D.C.
“Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience” (2024) – Theater Alliance.
- A new production of the Helen Hayes/Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Adaptation, 2023, adapted from the work of June Jordan by Adrienne Torf and Raymond O. Caldwell. Theater Alliance revisits the wildly successful and profoundly needed work from 2021 which shines a light on the life, writing, activism, and creative spirit of the late poet, activist, essayist and teacher June Jordan. Through music, poetry, letters, and conversations, this kaleidoscopic work celebrates the legacy of a Black woman whose words still hold resonance today, perhaps even more than ever.
April 21st, 2024, Lansing, Michigan
Adrienne Torf and Voices of the Revolution.
- An evening of solo piano and performances of works from “June Jordan and Adrienne Torf: Collaboration” as well as original poetry by Voices of the Revolution. Includes a fundraising auction for Voices of the Revolution! UrbanBeat 7:30 p.m.
April 20th, 2024, Flint, Michigan
Adrienne Torf and Voices of the Revolution, with special guests Flint Poet Laureate Semaj Brown and poet/scholar Natasha Elle Thomas.
- An evening of solo piano and performances of works from “June Jordan and Adrienne Torf: Collaboration” as well as original poetry by Voices of the Revolution, Semaj Brown and Natasha Elle Thomas. Unitarian Universalist Church 7:30 p.m.
November 11, 2023
Toledo, OH – Adrienne Torf and Voices of the Revolution
- An evening of solo piano and performances of works from “June Jordan and Adrienne Torf: Collaboration” as well as original poetry by Voices of the Revolution.
November 10, 2023
- Adrienne Torf and Voices of the Revolution – an evening of solo piano and performances of works from “June Jordan and Adrienne Torf: Collaboration” as well as original poetry by Voices of the Revolution. This event was livestreamed.
August 26, 2023
Resonant Surfaces @ Freight & Salvage, Berkeley – Sarah Bush (dancer), Shelley Doty (guitarist & vocalist) and Adrienne Torf (pianist)
- Explored concepts of motherhood, personal experiences and collective narratives in an intergenerational project that incorporates improvisation as well as fully composed elements.
May 22, 2023
Helen Hayes Awards – “Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience”
- Received the Theater Washington Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical Adaptation. “Stay tuned for future productions in Washington D.C. and in cities around the U.S.” – Adrienne
Select image to view slideshow
Links to Social Media Assets
- Podcast Episode with Linda Damita – 2022. Linda was a spoken word participant in the Sedona, Arizona production of “The Awesome Difficult Work of Love” . While I was there, we recorded this podcast.
- Conversations with Adrienne Torf & June Millington – 2020
- Podcast Episodes – Haas Podcasts – A podcast I recently recorded as a Haas School of Business Alum focused largely on my musical self.
- What We Did This Summer – YouTube – 2009. (0:40 to 2:45) Post Camps @ IMA With June Millington
- Music for Madison Part 1 and Part 2 – 2009. The first performance of the music that grew to become The Awesome Difficult Work of Love at the 2009 National Women’s Music Festival with Flora Van Wormer on cello.
- Queer Music Heritage Radio – 2004. Spotlight: Adrienne Torf
Press
- “Theater Alliance’s Revealing Tribute ‘Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience'” in DC Theater Arts (June 10, 2024)
- “Theater Alliance Presents Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience” in Broadway World (May 29, 2024)
- Emmy nomination! Adrienne’s piece “Still Life with Piano” from her album “Brooklyn from the Roof” is included in the soundtrack for “Truth Tellers,” an Emmy-nominated documentary by filmmaker Richard Kane about artist Robert Shetterly’s portraits of activists fighting for justice.
- ‘Poetry to the People: The June Jordan Experience’ – Anacostia Arts Center – DC Theater Arts
- D.C. Theater Arts 2023 Helen Hayes Awards – You have to scroll down pretty far to get to our category
- Poetry for the People: the June Jordan Experience – Digital program (pdf)