Kelley was an important American composer of the period which spanned the 19th and 20th centuries. Born in Sparta, Wisconsin, he received his earliest formal musical training in Chicago. From there he went to the Stuttgart Conservatory where he studied composition, piano, and the organ, and conducted performances of light opera in New York and San Francisco. While in the latter city, he served also as music critic for the Examiner . In 1910 he was appointed professor of composition at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and retained that post until his death. His works were strongly European in flavor and, for this reason, he was regarded by some critics as a worthy successor to Edward MacDowell. His most famous work during his lifetime was the incidental music he composed for the staged version of Wallace's Ben Hur , which received some 6,000 performances between 1901 and 1918. The Gorno Memorial Music Library holds the manuscript of his California Idyl , op. 38, for soprano and orchestra, in an arrangement for voice and piano.