Alex Turley is an Australian composer whose work explores the subtleties of musical texture through a fine atmospheric lens. Praised as possessing a “refined sense of texture and atmosphere” (Partial Durations), “brilliantly accessible” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution), and “organic and edgy” (Stage Whispers), his music has garnered international recognition in the art music space. Alex lives and works on Wurundjeri land.
Alex’s music has been commissioned and performed by the Sydney, Melbourne and Darwin Symphony Orchestras, Omega Ensemble, Forest Collective, Intercurrent, Soundstream Collective, Brisbane Music Festival, Argo, Grey Wing Ensemble, Golden Gate Brass, Voyces, Naya Chorale and community groups across five continents.
As a collaborative artist, Alex has co-composed art music with Maningrida-based rock band Ripple Effect and Kunibidji elders, Veena virtuoso Hari Sivanesan and Indian Classical Music collective Sangam, and a range of contemporary artists including Electric Fields, Eskimo Joe, ELAURA, Anthony Callea and Lucy Durack. He has also scored theatrical productions at The Blue Room Theatre, Perth, Theatre Works, St Kilda, kxt bAKEHOUSE, Sydney, and Studio Underground WA.
Alex is the 2022 Cybec Young Composer-in-residence with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Upcoming work includes new pieces for multi-composer initiatives The ANAM Set and Sydney Symphony’s 50 Fanfares, as well as three orchestral commissions for the MSO. Alex is the recipient of the 2022 Arcadia Winds Composition Prize, which will see a wind quintet commissioned and performed this year.
In 2018, Alex held composer-in-residence positions with Melbourne-based chamber ensemble Forest Collective and the Kodaly Music Education Institute of Australia. His orchestral work City of Ghosts was recently featured by Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to critical acclaim.
Alex studied Composition and Music Technology at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts before completing a Master of Music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2020, and is an alumnus of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Composer’s School, Omega Ensemble’s CoLAB Composer Accelerator Program and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Cybec program. He is a recipient of the Henderson Postgraduate Award from the University of Sydney, the Winstanley Award from Edith Cowan University and in 2021 was a finalist in the APRA AMCOS Professional Development Awards.
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