Edgar Stillman Kelley

Edgar Stillman Kelley was born on 14 April 1857 in Sparta (Wisconsin, USA). His mother, herself musically trained, became his first teacher and introduced him to piano playing at an early age. In 1874 Edgar Stillmann Kelley moved to Chicago to pursue professional training, studying piano and theory with Clarence Eddy and Napoleon Ledochowski. In 1876 he continued his studies in Germany and enrolled at the Stuttgart Conservatory. There he studied organ, piano, and composition with Friedrich Finck, Wilhelm Krüger, Wilhelm Speidel, and Max Seifriz, completing his studies in 1880. After graduating, Kelley performed with orchestras in Europe, gaining practical experience as a pianist and conductor before returning to the United States.
Upon his return around 1880, Kelley settled in San Francisco, where he worked as a church organist and became active in the city’s musical life. He also served as a music critic for the San Francisco Examiner. His first major recognition as a composer came with incidental music for a stage production of Macbeth, which attracted considerable attention and marked the beginning of his career as a composer of theatrical and programmatic works.
In 1886 Kelley moved to New York City, drawn by opportunities in theater and musical journalism. There he married the singer and pianist Jessie Gregg in 1891. The couple subsequently spent several years back in California, where Kelley worked as a composer, conductor, lecturer, and teacher. By the mid-1890s he had returned to New York, conducting an operetta company while also teaching at the New York College of Music and New York University. In 1901 he temporarily replaced composer Horatio Parker as a faculty member at Yale University during Parker’s sabbatical leave, further strengthening his academic reputation.
In 1902 Kelley and his wife relocated to Berlin, where they remained for approximately eight years. During this period he lectured, taught, conducted, and performed across Europe, actively promoting American music abroad at a time when European audiences rarely encountered works by American composers. Despite professional success, Kelley increasingly wished to concentrate on composition, and in 1910 he returned permanently to the United States to accept a position at the Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio. He remained affiliated with the institution until his retirement in 1934.
Alongside his academic appointment, Kelley taught composition at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, eventually becoming dean of the Department of Composition and Orchestration. 
Edgar Stillman Kelley died on 12 November 1944 in Oxford (Ohio, USA).

The work catalogue of Edgar Stillman Kelley contains two operettas ("Puritania" and "Pompeiian Picnic"), two symphonies (titled "Gulliver" and "New England"), orchestral suites like "Aladdin", "Alice in Wonderland" or "The Pit and the Pendulum", a string quartet, a string quintet and other chamber music, songs, the music for the film "Corianton" and the oratorio "The Pilgrim's Progress".