Reviews & Media

Reviews

Adrienne’s Solo Performances

“Adrienne Torf is a true musician. 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… [Her music] is colorful, mysterious and profound.”

ADLIB Magazine

“Adrienne is an incredible pianist.”

Holly Near

“Torf succeeds in communicating her love of music… and in pulling us into it with her.”

Tatiana Schreiber

GCN

“Torf’s delicately skilled touch blended perfectly, no matter what the style…[In] the evening show-stopper, “Hay Una Mujer”… Torf performed an amazing, complex arrangement of the tune [which] brilliantly and eloquently conveyed the horror and loss.”

S.L. Guthrie

Anchorage Daily News

“Brooklyn From The Roof is a gem of an album… [It] shows her to be a commanding talent, by turns romantic, introspective and witty.”

Jeff McLaughlin

The Boston Globe

Adrienne with Voices of the Revolution

“This morning [after the performance by Adrienne Torf and Voices of the Revolution] I can yet hear the applause in my body. I can see the poetry of June Jordan in me and in every woman. It was EARTH SHIFT! … All those words in one place, on one stage with the piano of Adrienne Torf laying the substrate from which the Voices of the Revolution bolted up like lightning, growing from a fire field.”

Semaj Brown

Poet Laureate of Flint, MI

Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience

“WORDS THAT BOTH SING AND CHALLENGE. If, like this reviewer, you were not previously acquainted with June Jordan, POETRY FOR THE PEOPLE is a crackling introduction… this one – as the title suggests – is intended for all of us.”

Evan Henerson

Broadway World

“POETRY AS ACTIVISM, MEMORY, AND INVITATION… A moving, participatory tribute to June Jordan that insists poetry still matters.”

Ernest Kearney

Stage and Cinema

“A MASTERCLASS IN POETRY… a study of words as instruments of power… the kind of theatre that rejoices in the in-person directness of its medium.”

Gabrielle Johnsen

Larchmont Buzz

“WONDERFUL… [a] uniquely moving and stirring choreopoem… immersive and interactive… a strong ensemble cast under the graceful direction of Raymond O. Caldwell.”

Edward Hong

The Nerds of Color

“Such a moving, unique, theatrical experience… I love opportunities like this where we get to really redefine what theater can in fact be, and when we reintegrate the community aspect that is so important… Go and have a really wonderful human experience; you will not be sorry.”

Bob Barth

WFMU radio

For Women Serving Time

“Torf is clearly an extremely creative composer, from the instrumentation to the way she used four-part harmony… to make the audience feel how prison is never quiet, to the use of breathing and whispering as vocal effects, including at the end, with a final, audible and dramatic exhale before the blackout.”

Maggie Ramsey

Opera Today

Bang Bang Uber Alles

“Torf’s gloriously eclectic music moves from pop to jazz to gospel, from waltz to funk. Jordan’s lyrics are sharp, her song titles appropriately Brechtian, ironic and blunt.”

Steve Murray

Southline (1986)

Podcasts

2023

Haas School of Business Podcasts

Adrienne Torf, MBA 92 – Bringing LGBTQ Students Together Since 1990.

Click here to listen

2022

Podcast Episode with Linda Damita

Linda was a spoken word participant in the Sedona, Arizona production of The Awesome Difficult Work of Love. While Adrienne was there, they recorded this podcast.

Click here to listen

2020

Conversations with Adrienne Torf & June Millington

June herself and all that she taught me as the producer on the first studio album I worked on (Holly Near’s Fire in the Rain) are at the core of my musical life.

Click here to listen

2004

Queer Music Heritage Radio

Spotlight: Adrienne Torf. An interview with archivists JD Doyle and Joan Devlin about Adrienne and June Jordan’s collaborative process.

Click here to listen

Videos

2026

Adrienne Torf’s YouTube Channel

Adrienne’s YouTube channel featuring her latest stories and insights.

Click here to view Adrienne’s channel

2026

Art Activism | Conversation with the Creators of For Women Serving Time

Adrienne and librettist Fatemeh Keshavarz talk about creating their opera theater piece For Women Serving Time, with director Timothy Nelson.

Click here to view

2026

Shana Oshiro about Poetry for the Peop0le: The June Jordan Experience

Click here to view

2010

What We Did Last Summer

At the Institute for the Musical Arts, an impromptu conversation with June Millington about recording Holly Near’s Fire in the Rain plus an intimate moment together at the piano.

Click here to view

2009

Music for Madison

The first performance of the piece that became The Awesome Difficult Work of Love at the 2009 National Women’s Music Festival with Flora Van Wormer on cello and spoken word by Teneia Sanders, Kri Magesty and Hettie Mays (aka The Sirens).

Click here to view to Part 1

Click here to view to Part 2