Isabella Morrill
Biography
Isabella Piritta Morrill (b. Warrenton, Ore.) is an American composer, arranger and song writer.
Ms. Morrill has been playing music as long as she can remember, going from piano to drum kit to French horn, and more. She plays 12 instruments, but her first love is composing. She attends [2023] Western Oregon University on scholarship as a composition major in her junior year, studying under Dr. Kevin Walczyk. She works there as the resident composer, writing and arranging for the Western Oregon Wind Ensemble. During both her freshman and sophomore years, she was named outstanding undergraduate composer in Walczyk’s studio.
Her sophomore year led to a commissioned band work from Washington High School in Tacoma, as well as a commissioned work from Chief Umtuch Middle School in Battleground. Since then, she has been focusing on writing for band and wind ensemble. Morrill specializes in wind ensemble and concert band music, film, and orchestral scores. Her music is most often dramatic and solemn, and her goal is to bring rich tangibility those who listen to her compositions. She is a dual citizen of the United States and Finland, and one of her great joys is to tie her Scandinavian heritage closely into her music.
In the fall of 2019, Isabella was titled co-champion of the Oregon Music Education Association’s Composition Contest with her orchestral piece Hymn to the Rain. This piece went on to be performed by the Columbia River Symphony in Astoria, Oregon & led to her gaining a commission through the Newport Youth Composer Symposium. This symposium led her to work with Dr. Dana Reason and Michael Dalton in her composition training. She is a recipient of the Oregon Music Hall of Fame scholarship as well as the Finlandia Foundation Scholarship as a composer.
She also was commissioned by the Portland Youth Philharmonic through the Youth Orchestra Commissioning Initiative in 2021. Her commissioned piece, Bartokian Brass, was performed in June of the same year by the brass ensemble of the PYP. Through this, she has gained statewide recognition as an up-and-coming composer in the concert band world.
Works for Winds
- Colors of the Midnight Sun
- Forever in the Wind (2024)
- Rivers (2024)
- Voyage of the Northern Lights (2022)