Composer | Pianist | Storyteller
Adrienne Torf
Creating music, theater, and public art that give voice
to justice, community, and human connection.
Adrienne’s piece “Opening,” from her new album Here I Am, now opens Tara Brach’s podcasts — introducing the widely loved meditation and mindfulness teacher on her website and podcast apps.
BIOGRAPHY
About Adrienne
Adrienne Torf is a composer, pianist, and performing artist whose work bridges music, theater, poetry, and opera.
“… Her compositions go beyond the frame of jazz and the classics to create a free and unique world. Yet, she maintains a dignity essential in music… colorful, mysterious and profound.”
ADLIB Magazine
Adrienne’s musical career includes performing her original solo piano pieces; a nineteen-year collaboration with the esteemed African-American poet, activist and teacher June Jordan, including the documentary opera Bang Bang Über Alles; co-devising Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience with theater director Raymond O. Caldwell; and the opera/theater piece For Women Serving Time, commissioned by IN Series opera. Her other theater work includes the community participation piece for spoken word and music, The Awesome Difficult Work of Love.
Her recording credits include three solo albums—Here I Am (2025), Two Hands Open (2003), and Brooklyn from the Roof (1986), plus Collaboration: Selected Works, 1983–2000 and over twenty other commercially released recordings.
A longtime favorite in the women’s music community, Torf applied her MBA from UC Berkeley to a career in nonprofit finance.
Work in Progress
Legends, Myths & DNA
Collaborators Raymond O. Caldwell and Adrienne Torf re-unite to tell the story of a decades-long adoptee’s search for birth family in a classic American musical form.
Following on the multi-run success of their Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience, Torf and Caldwell draw on singular and universal experiences of adoptees, birth mothers, adoptive families, and “search angels” as they navigate the legal, societal and emotional obstacles that they hope will ultimately lead to finding each other.
Past Events
Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience
Co-devised by Raymond O. Caldwell and Adrienne Torf. Produced at the Theater Alliance, the Fountain Theatre, and The Freight.
Los Angeles, CA – Jan 2026 – Theatre | Berkeley, CA – Feb 24, 2026 – Theatre
Washington, DC – 2024 – Theatre | Washington, DC – 2022 – Theatre
For Women Serving Time
IN Series world premiere — opera-theater. Music by Adrienne Torf · libretto by Fatemeh Keshavarz · directed by Timothy Nelson.
Washington, DC – Mar 20–22, 2026 – Theatre | Baltimore, MD – Apr 10–12, 2026 – Theatre
The Awesome Difficult Work of Love
A community-participation performance weaving spoken word, music, movement, and visual art.
Flint, MI – May 2026 – Theatre | Sedona, AZ – Sep 2022 – Theatre
1San Francisco, CA – Oct 2012 – Theatre | Madison, WI – Oct 2008 – Theatre
GET IN TOUCH
Contact
For bookings, press, licensing, or anything else — send a note and Adrienne’s team will get back to you.