Adrienne Torf

Adrienne Torf began studying piano at the age of 3 1/2, “not because my parents were
hoping for a musical prodigy,” she says, “but because there was a wonderful piano teacher
living on our street and all the kids took lessons from her. Beatrice Sigel taught me
elementary music theory as well as how to play the piano. I learned to read and write music
before I learned to read and write English, so you could say it’s my first language, as
fundamental and natural as breathing for me.”

In high school she studied with Allen Barker and accompanied theater and choral
performances at The Winsor School in Boston. Her musical pursuits extended to joining a
disco band while at Smith College, where she continued to study piano with Monica Jakuc.
“Allen Barker introduced me to the work of composers who were masters at telling stories
and conveying visuals through music – Debussy, Ravel, Satie. He also brought me to the
music of Bela Bartok, where I learned about the piano’s possibilities as a percussion
instrument. And Monica Jakuc exposed me to the work of living composers, including John
Cage, from whom I learned that even the random sounds of the city can be heard as music.”
After graduating from Stanford University with a degree in Political Science, Adrienne
became a contract studio and touring keyboard player, working extensively throughout the
United States, Canada, Europe and Scandinavia. Her keyboard work and arrangements
appear on more than twenty commercially-released albums to date, including some by Holly
Near, with whom she worked steadily from 1980-1982, Ferron, Kay Gardner and the Olivia
Records’ Carnegie Hall recording with Cris Williamson and Meg Christian. (see her Selected
Discography)

In 1983, Adrienne began a long-running collaboration with renowned poet, essayist and
political activist June Jordan. Bang Bang Über Alles, their full-length contemporary opera,
was produced off-Broadway in 1985 by the American Place Theater and in 1986 in by
Atlanta’s Seven Stages Theater, where critics raved about the show and the Ku Klux Klan
attempted to shut it down. Jordan and Torf also wrote the Freedom Now Suite, which
premiered at Town Hall in NYC on the first celebration of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr.

While living in Brooklyn, Adrienne also composed and performed for off-Broadway theater
productions, radio, industrial videos, television pilots and dance troupes, and fulfilled a
commission from conductor Tania Leon to write an orchestral work for the Brooklyn
Philharmonic. She also regularly performed solo and with a band as part of the “Celebrate
Brooklyn” series.

1986 saw the release of Brooklyn From The Roof, her first solo album of original music for
piano and synthesizers, produced by Leslie Ann Jones on the Nippon Phonogram label, a
subsidiary of Polygram Records. Of that debut, one critic wrote, “[Torf] has technique to
burn (and enough artistic maturity to use it wisely).” The Boston Globe selected it as one of
the year’s ten best albums, stating “Brooklyn From The Roof is a gem of an album…[It]
shows [Torf] to be a commanding talent, by turns romantic, introspective and witty.” The
album remained in demand even after it went out of print in the early 1990’s, so Torf re-
issued it in 2003.

Brooklyn From the Roof was followed in 1990 by a cassette-only limited release of music
for piano and synthesizers, Find A Way. That same year, Adrienne entered the Haas School
of Business at UC Berkeley, where she earned an MBA in 1992.

For the next ten years, Adrienne continued to pursue a business career, working mainly in the
areas of operations and technology management. “My heart remained with music and I still
identified as a piano player. In my last semester of business school, though, I decided it was
important to continue to learn about business beyond the classroom. I wanted to experience
first hand what makes an organization tick, to deepen my understanding and knowledge
beyond that of a novice.”

June Jordan and Adrienne Torf continued to write and perform together, giving their last
performance in 2001 in Boston. They recorded Collaboration (Selected Works, 1983-
2000) shortly afterwards. The studio recording includes performances by Jordan and Torf as
a duo, and other pieces on which they are joined by a variety of singers and instrumentalists,
including vocalists Rhiannon, Cris Williamson Jeannie Tracy and their long-time colleague
Andre dos Santos Morgan.