Adrienne Torf

Long a women’s music audience favorite for her piano work with Holly Near, Linda Tillery, Meg Christian, Cris Williamson, Ferron, Kay Gardener and others, Adrienne Torf’s solo recordings include three albums of original compositions for piano and synthesizers: Here I Am (produced by Barbara Higbie, 2025), Two Hands Open (2003), and Brooklyn from the Roof (1986).

A highlight of her composing career has been a nineteen-year artistic partnership with the renowned poet, activist, essayist and teacher June Jordan. Together they wrote numerous works for performance including their full-length stage musical/documentary opera Bang Bang Uber Alles. A portion of their work together is captured on June Jordan and Adrienne Torf Collaboration: Selected Works, 1983-2000 (2003).

In 2022, Adrienne co-devised the theater piece Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience with Raymond O. Caldwell at Theater Alliance in Washington DC. The show was awarded the 2023 Helen Hayes Theater Washington Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical Adaptation and enjoyed a second run in 2024. It is slated to run at the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles in early 2026.

Also set for production in 2026 is For Women Serving Time, an extended poem/opera for which Adrienne composed the score, with text by Fatemeh Keshavarz, produced by IN Series Opera in Washington, DC. Adrienne’s community-collaboration performance piece The Awesome Difficult Work of Love, which was produced in Madison WI (2008), San Francisco (2012) and Sedona, AZ (2022), and will be produced in Flint, MI in Spring, 2026.

Adrienne began studying piano and music theory at the age of three. In 2021, she retired from a long career as a nonprofit CFO and board member to fully return to her work in music and theater.