Gallery • 4 Photos

Senior Isaac Turley looks proudly at the finished score of Day Dreams.

The art hallway is silent save for the sound of bows against strings. The orchestra is practicing a new piece, the violins up high and basses down low. They gracefully play this new song known as Day Dreams. The piece is fun and upbeat, a dance song. Unlike the pieces mostly played by the orchestra, that are written by composer who have long since passed away, this piece is more modern. Day Dreams was written by senior Isaac Turley.

Ever since diapers Turley has been intrigued by the creative side of life. The side full of music, films, and imagination. Over the years he has moved his passion from Legos to short-films and has now landed on music. He has written short songs for himself and his friends to play. Now, he is going bigger, Turley has just composed his first full orchestral piece for the Stillwater Concert Orchestra.

Growing up Turley was full of stories. His love for telling stories created his interest in music, his way of telling stories without words. Passionate and young he continued to love music,  making it a part of every creation. When he received his first music software was when his composing began to take off.

“Being able to express emotion is always something I found some odd interest in. The love of music and self-expression are mainly what [started] my composing,” Turley said.

Not only do his compositions show his emotions, they evoke those of the listeners too. His songs range from deep and emotional to happy and dancelike- as in Day Dreams.

“I think his compositions have depth, and are complex. While listening to them they evoke emotion, or bring to mind an experience. I love watching him exercise his talent for composing, his passion for music shows in his eyes,” Isaac’s mom Ellie said.

In the classroom, Isaac is a quiet soul that observes more than shares his thoughts. When he picks up his pen to start writing, the thoughts he has held in all day come pouring out. Thus creating his feelings in the form of sounds. He creates many types of music, but all have a common theme. His lack of the spoken word transitions over to his songs, very few contain any lyrics at all. The point is to let the listener decide what the song means to them.

“I compose just whatever I feel like. I have made full orchestral [pieces], edm, transpositions, emotional overload songs, and even some that are just supposed to create an image or story in the listener’s head,” Isaac said.

The choice to refrain from lyrics, unlike most other young artists, divides Isaac from the rest of this generation’s striving composers. He has the advantage of appealing to more minds, but also faces the challenge of playing with heart strings with only sounds. Most of the time his pieces are created as spur of the moment hums.

“I will literally start humming stuff, and if it sounds good, I save it for later. Music has layers and it can be really difficult to find the right blend of sound, harmony and dissonance,” Isaac explained.

Dreaming big, as most young people do, he desires to compose music for a living. With a recent discovery in how powerful orchestral pieces are, and how often they are used in movies, he has set his eyes on that path. He intends to write music for movies, trying to be as iconic as John Williams. So far, Isaac has been successful in creating the images and responses in his listeners as composers should be.

“Isaac’s compositions are very moving he incorporates feelings of lifting your emotions and leveling them out again then bringing them back up again,” his father Dennis said.