History of Sparta, (Monroe County) Wisconsin United States of America

Our database does not include an historic photo for Sparta, (Monroe County) Wisconsin, do you have one you would like to contribute? Contact Us!

Edgar Stillman Kelley, composer, was born at Sparta, Wis., April 14, 1857; son of Hiram Edgar and Mary Clarinda (Bingham) Kelley; grandson of Norman and Maria (Jencks) Kelley and of Luther Stillman and Fidelia Pearce (Rockwell) Bingham, and a descendant of William Kelley; born in Rhode Island in 1720, a soldier in the American Revolution; of Joseph Jencks of Massachusetts Bay colony, 1640, who made the dies for the Pine Tree shilling; of Thomas Bingham, emigrated, 1640, from Sheffield, England; and of Deacon William Rockwell, Dorchester, Mass., 1630. His collegiate education was abandoned on account of ill health, but he pursued the study of music in Chicago under N. Ledochowski and Clarence Eddy, 1874-76; attended the Conservatory of music, Stuttgart, Germany, 1876-80, where he took a course in composition under Max Seifriz, the royal court conductor, and studied piano with Wilhelm Speidel, and organ with Friedrich Fink. On his return in 1880 he took up Iris residence in San Francisco, where he wrote his first important work, the overture and incidental music to Macbeth. He settled in New York city in 1886 as a composer and lecturer on musical topics, and was a special lecturer on music in the extension department of the University of the State of New York from 1896. His principal works include: music to Macbeth, produced with the play (1885 and 1887); The Phases of Love, a series of songs (1886); Puritania (opera, 1892); orchestral suite, Aladdin (1894); music to Prometheus Bound (1897); musical settings to poems of Edgar Allan Poe,?Eldorado and Israfel, for voice and orchestra; music for the drama Ben Hur (1899), besides various songs and piano pieces.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Sparta, (Monroe County) Wisconsin

Biographies: