Joshua Torres spends his days sitting quietly at a teacher’s desk with a book in his hand and glasses resting on his nose. His formal dress attire and soothing voice make curious as to what kind of life he lives outside of Parker. Never one to talk much about himself, only students who have chosen to get to know him a little bit know that he is a musician, but there’s much more left unsaid.

Torres grew up in Chicago and, as a Parker graduate (‘06), he learned a lot from the school’s arts program. His sophomore year of high school he started taking music and was cast into the Parker musical. Around that time, he was introduced to a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) called Fruity Loops, which got him interested in creating his own music. He began rapping over instrumentals that he produced in talent shows, assemblies, and school dances in his duo called Two Deep.

When he started writing his own music, Torres got in touch with Maceo Haymes, lead singer of “The O’My’s,” who he remains in touch with to this day, and they collaborated a lot throughout the rest of his high school days. “That was the genesis of my music career,” Torres said. 

Although music was a rising interest for Torres, it wasn’t his only focus: he liked acting as well. He actually ended up going to Depaul for their acting program, but he didn’t prioritize acting over music. “It kind of all just happened at the same time and I’ve always been pursuing both of them at the same time,” Torres said. “I’m multidimensional. I just have a gift of being able to do things to a proficiency that most coin themselves as professionals in that lane.”

Towards the end of his senior year in high school, Torres was set to go to school for finance at SIU, until he heard back very late from Depaul that he was accepted into their theatre program. Fifty-two freshman actors were admitted, and only 26 moved passed the cut stage and stayed for the year. “My ideology at the time was ‘I will go, I’ll see what happens in my first year, and if I get cut, I’ll just do finance’,” Torres said. “I didn’t get cut.”

Right out of college, he worked in Cape Cod for the summer and then moved straight to New York City where he lived for four years. There he appeared in TV shows, various acting gigs across the city, and starred in a pilot for a TV series that didn’t continue. In his mind, he proved that he made it in New York and felt he didn’t need to stay any longer. “Internally and spiritually I just had a shift. I wasn’t just falling for the hype of New York of paying top dollar to live in squalor,” Torres said. “I was craving nature at the time and needing to schedule nature into my day just seemed unnatural. I was ready for a change.”

After bouncing around California for a bit, Torres landed a shared lead role in the play “Oedipus El Rey” in San Francisco. The other co-star, Carlos Aggurie, reflects Torres’ talent while performing alongside him. “In terms of our work together, hungry is what comes to mind,” Aggurie said. “He’s just someone who is completely all about approaching the role holistically, which is from every angle, and making sure that everything is covered.” 

Torres came back to his hometown of Chicago in 2013 and right away he reached out to Ms. Holland Pryor, a longtime mentor of his. She mentioned subbing at Parker, and at the time he had a lot of downtime between projects, and it would be an additional source of income. 

While still advancing his acting career and subbing at Parker, Torres released his first album, “The Cuts”. He went on a 14-city tour performing his album and eventually ended up in Atlanta, where he spent two years acting mostly commercials. But he decided to come back to Chicago. “The more you experience and live life,” Torres said, “the better of an actor you are because you have life experiences to pull from or relate to whatever character you’re embodying.”

In the decade that his professional career was hitting highs and lows, Torres would study metaphysics on the side. Eventually his friend came up to him in need of a life coach, and Torres asked to be interviewed. He got the job and started his own company called Jahoia Life Coaching. 

“The main motivator that used to drive me was my career, success, monetary gain, things of that nature. Ultimately that doesn’t bring peace. It doesn’t bring supreme happiness,” Torres said. “As soon as I shift from focusing on me to focusing on my life’s mission, it became about other people. There was a mental shift, energetic shift, spiritual shift, so now expanding the practice is the forefront of my focus.”

Torres’ mission as a life coach is to live a free life while leading others to their own liberation through education, mentorship, creative expression, and mastery of universal forces. Once he started to align his practice to that, he saw a great shift that got him excited and made him want to share that with other people. One of the first messages he tells clients is, “Letting your career or monetary gains be your driving force, but really becoming keen on why you’re here and what is the legacy you’re going to leave beyond you.” 

On this 10 plus year journey after college of pursuing acting, music, and life coaching, Torres has seen the way he looks at being an artist, something he aspired to be as a young adult, differently. “My relationship with music has completely changed. A lot of people that get into music always dream of being a rockstar, being a celebrity, making a lot of money, but music is metaphysical and when you place a price point on it you destroy it,” Torres said. “I started to treat my music like a business and the love I initially had for it started to disappear and turn into frustration. Now I’m focused on music purely for making music.”

Aggurie, who has known Torres for a decade, has noted his musical shift and thinks it’s for the best. “The difference now is just how happy he is, just how grounded and center he is…,” Aggurie said. “He’s a guy that will take an opportunity and take it all the way because he’s doing it for the right reasons now.”

While Torres is making music, lining up acting gigs, or even setting up meetings at his life coaching job, he is still found subbing within the doors of Parker that he left 13 years ago. Alex Feitler, a student of a few of the classes Torres has subbed, has chosen to go out of his way to learn about Torres’ past, and is quite astonished about all that he did not know. “Personally, I did not expect him to have achieved so many things at such a young age and still be pursuing teaching,” Feitler said. “I was very impressed.”

The complete, multidimensional man, as Torres would say, has learned a lot over his 13 year post Parker run and has matured as well. No longer needing to reach fame for happiness or needing to be seen on screen for peace, Torres is starting a new chapter in life. “My life’s mission is creative expression,” Torres said. Using that creative expression to spread peace and happiness upon himself and others is how he is choosing to live his life moving forward.