Kevin J. Kelly is a Los Angeles-based composer and Professor of Music at Los Angeles City College. He completed his bachelor's degree in composition at West Chester University, where his principal teachers were Robert Maggio and Larry Nelson. He was awarded a Ph.D. in composition from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied with Jay Reise, James Primosch, Anna Weesner, and Ingrid Arauco. He also studied with Samuel Adler, Philip Lasser, Narcis Bonet and Michel Merlet while participating in the European Musical Alliance summer composition program in Paris, France.
Dr. Kelly’s recent works have been performed by the Mivos Quartet, Richard Valitutto, gnarwhallaby, Alan Dunbar, Lara Bolton, and Eva Ingolf in the U.S., Europe, and South America. His song cycle Sierra Sketches was a winner of the 2014 ACFLA composition competition. Other awards and scholarships include a prize in the National Guild of Community Schools for the Arts' Young Composers Competition, recognition as a regional winner in the 1999 SCI/ASCAP Student Composition Competition, the William Penn Fellowship from the University of Pennsylvania and the Theodore Presser Scholarship from West Chester University. Dr. Kelly lives in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles with his wife and 2 children.