Alongside a myriad of guest speakers, breakout sessions, and activities, this year’s Torrey Memorial Bible Conference features music from Marra, a worship band made up of Biola alumni. In line with the conference’s 2025 theme–”Childlike”–Marra hopes to elevate the Torrey conference experience and enrich the Biola community by centering their sets on reverence, devotion, and the identity of being children of God.
Marra’s three members, Tommy Reed, Miah Diaz, and Alex Rocha met at Hume Lake, playing worship at Ponderosa Christian Camp at Hume lake in the summer of 2023. In the fall of 2024, Reed, Diaz, and Rocha got together for another practice session when they felt God calling them to form a group and begin writing their own songs. However, this was not something they anticipated.
We’d tried to songwrite and nothing worked,” said Rocha, “We’d try to force it, and then when we gave up, and we told the Lord this is yours to begin with, and that’s kind of when it started working. […] We’re doing all of this out of obedience, rather than ‘we just want something to be cool or different.’”
For Marra, worship is more than just praise and good music, it’s submission to God’s plan for them.
“I think the Lord has given us words and melodies, and we want to put that out,” Diaz said, speaking on how the group got started.“It’s not a mistake that every time we meet, we have finished a song. We’ve worshipped ourselves to bring this music to life and feel like the Lord is now calling us to release it.”
The band’s unique name, means “friend,” “pal” or “buddy” in certain dialects of English, like Cumbrian and Geordie, found in North England. The three chose this handle to reflect the core philosophy behind their group: one of friendship, community and intimacy, both with each other and God.
Rocha, who came up with the name, explained: “We’re just a group of friends who want to make music and glorify God through creativeness, through art, through music, and through songwriting.”
Marra may just mean friends, but their music is for everyone. In fact, they see themselves as part of an emerging trend in contemporary worship music.
“We are so excited for the younger sound of worship and like more contemporary indie pop style like Elevation Rhythm is going or Aodhán King, or Circuit Riders,” Reed said. Musically, they are inspired by giants such as Upper Room and Bethel Music. However, according to Diaz, lyrically they pull more from indie singer-songwriters such as Phoebe Bridgers and Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief.
It is this combination of devotion and enthusiasm infused with intentional and heartfelt lyricism that gives Marra its unique style.
“I think that it’s the heart behind our music, our lyrics to the Lord, and are they glorifying, and they’re showing our love to Him,” said Diaz. In addition to their usual set, Marra will be playing an original song this week, “Eternal Hallelujah,” the first song they ever wrote back in November of 2024.
Marra is honored to be chosen as this year’s Torrey conference band and resonates deeply with the theme of Childlike.
“The way the Lord has written with us has been very childlike, in the sense of- it’s very simple heart cries that we just have,” said Rocha. “Why don’t we just say how we feel?”
All three band members have been deeply impacted by past Torrey Conferences and hope that they will be able to give this year’s students the same experience. Diaz remembers a formative time.
“It was during extended worship that Thursday night. And I remember so vividly the Lord meeting me there and I couldn’t help but fall to my knees in worship. I just remember being vividly marked by that time in worship,” said Diaz.
Going forward, the band hopes to continue writing songs together and eventually release an album. That is, of course, if that is the Lord’s plan for them. In keeping the band’s name, the three hope to keep playing and serving together at the same church for the foreseeable future.
“If that’s in the future for the next decade or couple of years, we just want to be obedient to whatever the Lord wants,” said Rocha. They even have big dreams of bringing their thoughtful energetic songs into the mainstream. “I’m trying to go to Disneyland,” said Reed. “Or Coachella.”
Although it is tempting for many students to view the conference as a mere obligation or requirement, Marra invites this year’s students to view it as an opportunity for growth and honesty with God. Reed, who had the privilege of assisting in planning a past conference, remarked that, “You can do all the planning that you want for a couple of days but then God shows up in a way that’s so beyond what you could plan…It’s just such a gift that we go to a school that plans for a week of just like being together in worship and learning about the Lord and hearing from him.”
As you attend this week’s sessions and activities, Marra’s music invites you to be more thoughtful about how you approach worshipping God and loving Him in a genuinely childlike way.
As Diaz put it, “Our prayer for the students this week is that when they hear our music, they’re invited into honesty and intimacy with the Lord.”
