Tornsey at Pearl Bar 2025-09-14T20:00:00
Creating music is, at its core, an exploration of identity. Tornsey - the artist project of singer/songwriter Tess Schoonhoven - shares that process with beats of celebration, freedom, radical honesty, provoking metaphors, and unabashed emotion.
A fusion of piano centric rock n’roll, theater songwriting styles, and 80’s synth pop, the sound of Tornsey alludes to bold, pop/rock icons like Fiona Apple, Ben Folds, Queen, MUNA, and Sara Bareilles.
Schoonhoven adopted the moniker “Tornsey” in 2022, with her debut single “I Feel Fine” releasing in June. The song kicked off the summer with a proclamatory, high-energy aura that finds the humor and acceptance that can come when a relationship ends, and you just, feel fine about it.
“Two years ago, I was writing songs about how I’d never amount to anything and how much I doubted who I was at every angle. While I’m nowhere near perfectly healed from trauma, broken relationships, and my mental health battles, my identity has shifted so immensely that I finally feel like I’m ready to tell a different side of my story, and make space to explore other’s stories as well,” she says. “From coming out as queer, leaving religion and finding it in my own right, to discovering joy, hope and freedom all over again in unpredictable places, beginning again feels so right, and full of openness and love. I think embracing who you are is the most divine path anyone can take, and I hope to keep walking it, bringing as many people along as I can.”