
"Tim Kelly was orchestrating
for [us] and he turned out to be a wonderful composer."
—Richard Stone, supervising composer: Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, etc.
For nearly twenty years, Tim Kelly has composed and orchestrated music for film and television, including Warner Bros. animated shows Steven Spielberg Presents: Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, and Batman: The Animated Series.
Tim has scored several live-action movies, a diverse range of television shows, commercials and more. He has been nominated for Emmys four times, winning in 1999 for Animaniacs and in 2000 for Histeria.
A native of Washington state, Tim began classical piano instruction at the age of four, eventually studying clarinet and violin along the way. In high school, he received awards for his arranging and compositions for the jazz band and vocal jazz choir, while playing keyboards and synths with local rock bands. After moving to Los Angeles, he earned his Bachelor of Music degree in composition at California State University, Northridge, graduating with honors, and completed commercial composition and performance programs at the Grove School of Music. Additionally, Tim studied conducting with Lucas Richman, Music Director and Conductor for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, and the techniques of scoring to picture with veteran film and television composers Earl Hagen and Fred Karlin.
His big break came from the late Shirley Walker who—based on her reaction to his demo tape—hired him to orchestrate for Batman: The Animated Series. This soon led to work with Richard Stone, another late, great composer for Warner Bros. animation. With Stone's incredibly talented team of musicians, composers and orchestrators, Tim thrived for the next five years, honing his conducting and composing skills while gaining invaluable experience working with studio orchestras. Since then, and with the close of the "second golden age" of Warner Bros. animation scoring, Tim continues to compose for animated television in addition to scoring live-action television, orchestrating for major motion pictures, and composing for video games, including scoring the highly acclaimed intro cinematic for Warhammer: The Mark of Chaos.
In the mid 90's, Tim was captivated with the new sound of electronica, which had exploded across the international music scene. Having a life-long love for synthesizers and groove oriented music, Tim started producing in this style and has become savvy at infusing electronic elements with traditional scoring. His techno-influenced music was used in Alien Planet for Discovery and movie trailers for Spiderman 3 and Untraceable. Recently, his exploration into minimal techno has produced tracks that are creating interest amongst domestic and international DJs and record labels. Los Angeles DJ and Droid Records label head Drumcell has called his tracks "solid" and London based DJ/Producer Kanio says, "Liking the sounds...cool stuff."
Tim lives in Thousand Oaks, California with his wife, son and daughter. He enjoys hiking and backpacking when schedules permit and trail running with family dogs Jennie and Spock.