RICHARD TORRENCE, Executive Director of Anchor-International Foundation, is celebrating four decades of a New York-based career in management, producing, marketing, public relations, sponsorship, and fund raising.
As a manager of concert artists, he began with the leading American organist, Virgil Fox, in 1962. He also managed organists Pierre Cochereau of Nôtre-Dame de Paris, Ted Alan Worth, Carlo Curley, Richard Morris, Joyce Jones, Andrew Crow, Hector Olivera, and Claire Coci. In general music management, he represented Fernando Valenti, Earl Wild, Donald Shirley, Eartha Kitt, the Paul Winter Consort, Ruby Braff, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
As a producer for Virgil Fox, he created and presented the crossover concert, "Heavy Organ," at New York's Fillmore East in 1970. It toured throughout North America until Fox's death, in 1980. It made Fox the most famous and successful organist in America, and garnered articles in Time, The New York Times, The Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, and scores of other publications. It also produced four best-selling record albums for Fox. Throughout the 1960s, Torrence also presented Virgil Fox in seven concerts at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts' Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall), and produced various artists in Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Town Hall, the Gallery of Modern Art, and other venues throughout the United States.
As a producer of special events, beginning in 1975, he created the Albert Schweitzer Music Award, the Frank Lloyd Wright Creativity Award, the Bach-Gesellschaft of New York, and The Creo Society, a nonprofit organization that produced fund raising events for other nonprofit groups. Events took place in the World Financial Center, the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations, and all the leading concert halls and hotel ballrooms of New York City. Clients included the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR), Rockefeller University, the New York City Opera, "Dancing for Life," the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the Actor's Fund of America, and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting.
In marketing, a necessary element in all projects, Torrence worked for extended periods with the Rodgers Organ Company, Famiglia Artigiana Fratelli Ruffatti, Performance Marketing Corporation, and the St. Petersburg Partnership. From 2004 until 2009, he and Marshall Yaeger (as Torrence & Yaeger), represented Marshall & Ogletree digital organ builders of Massachusetts, for marketing, sales, and publicity. He currently is the managing director of Torrence/Yaeger VPO, builders of virtual pipe organs.
Richard Torrence became Director of Public Relations for the Rodgers Organ Company in 1971. He had created the Rodgers Touring Organ Program for Virgil Fox in 1965, which resulted in a seven-fold growth of Rodgers during the next ten years. It allowed many prominent organists to play in halls where there were no organs; was used in "Heavy Organ" and other spectacular organ presentations, live and on television; and resulted in a five-manual Rodgers organ being installed in Carnegie Hall in 1974. That same year, Torrence led the marketing of the first successful pipe/electronic combination organs, a product that is now standard for many organ companies in the United States and Europe. In 1975, he was made Vice President-Marketing for Rodgers.
Sponsors he worked with include Chase Manhattan Bank, Cadillac Motor Car, CBS Musical Instruments, Harry Winston, Gucci, Tiffany & Co., the American Gem Society, Delta Airlines, Nestlé, and Coca-Cola. Celebrities he served include Elizabeth Taylor, Leonard Bernstein, Mstislav Rostropovich, José Carreras, Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Anna Moffo, Eartha Kitt, Van Cliburn, Madonna, William F. Buckley Jr., Ted Turner, Jane Fonda, Michael Medavoy, and Michael York.
From 1983 to 1992, Richard Torrence and Marshall Yaeger raised more than $12-million for various nonprofit causes, primarily through special events production. In 1992, Torrence became Advisor for International Projects to Anatoly A. Sobchak, the first elected Mayor of St. Petersburg, Russia. From 1992 to 1996, he worked closely with First Deputy Mayor Vladimir V. Putin, Chairman of the International Committee, and with First Deputy Mayor Alexei L. Kudrin, Chairman of the Finance Committee. Mr. Putin is now President of Russia, and Mr. Kudrin is Deputy Prime Minister for Finance.
Clients in St. Petersburg included the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. (which built a $75-million factory for which Torrence was St. Petersburg's consultant), Arthur Anderson, Littlewoods, ED&F Man Sugar, Americom, Merck & Co., the Astoria Club, and ICN Pharmaceuticals. In 1993 and 1995, he produced the St. Petersburg Festival of American Films, and was Chairman from 1994 to 1996 of the Grand Hotel Europe Summer Events. He remained in St. Petersburg eighty percent of the time until 1999, when he turned his focus back to New York and Anchor-International Foundation, which he helped set up in 1997 to instigate medical and cultural projects between Russia and the United States.
Richard Torrence is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a frequent speaker at American and Russian conventions about Virgil Fox, the organ, and concert producing. He co-authored, with Marshall Yaeger, the memoirs of Ted Alan Worth: Virgil Fox (The Dish), the biography of the famous musician he served for 17 years. He has been listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in Finance and Industry, and Who's Who in the Performing Arts.
Website sources: www.Anchor-International.org, www.VirtualPipe.Org, www.CirclesInternet.com, www.TorrenceYaeger.com, www.SeeMusicDVD.com, www.VirgilFoxLegacy.com.
