Edgar Stillman Kelley

An interest in theater drew him to New York City in 1886, and there he married Jessie Gregg on July 23, 1891; the two then returned to California for four more years, during which time Kelley composed, conducted, lectured, and taught.

Kelley, though, wished to spend more time composing, and in 1910 took a post at the Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio, where he remained until his death.

[2] Kelley was a Romanticist in the vein of Horatio Parker, George Whitefield Chadwick, and Arthur Foote, and brought much of his German training to bear in his compositions.

For his orchestral suite Aladdin, one of his early successes, he studied the music he heard in San Francisco's Chinatown, and used oboes, muted trumpets, and mandolins to imitate Chinese instruments.

His New England Symphony is based on themes found in bird songs (the andante portion[4]), as well as American Indian and Puritan music.

[5]A good deal of Kelley's music was published by Arthur Farwell's Wa-Wan Press in the early years of the twentieth century.

In addition to his work as a composer, Kelley was active as a writer on music, continuing after his early experience with the Examiner in San Francisco.

The most notable of his composition pupils was Wallingford Riegger; among his other students were Frederick Ayres, Joseph W. Clokey, James G. Heller, Theodore Holland, Rupert Hughes, W. Otto Miessner, Alexander Russell,[1] and Ella May Dunning Smith.

[6] Miami University maintains an archive devoted to Kelley and his wife; it contains correspondence, music manuscripts, books, and other material related to the composer's life and career.

Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra recorded The Red Queen's Banquet from Kelley's 'Alice in Wonderland' Suite on an acoustic 78rpm disc in 1924.