Audrey Kelley
Guest Artist and Contracts Coordinator

2023 marks Audrey’s 14^th season with the Bellingham Festival of Music. Currently, Audrey works in Advancement as the Director of Executive and Board Operations for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, one of the top ten orchestras in the US by budget and audience reach.  A member of the artistic staff of the Bellingham Festival of Music since 2017, she has done guest artist contracting, marketing and program curation, and has served as festival coordinator, production manager, program book producer and editor, and music director search committee member.  She has previously worked in marketing and development for Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as well as concert programming at Western Washington University. Audrey previously taught undergraduate composition at Western Washington University and has maintained a private studio of piano, clarinet, and composition students for over 15 years.

As a composer she has collaborated with visual artists, choreographers and filmmakers on projects ranging from textile installations and musical theatre works to modern dance and animation. Many of Audrey’s contemporary classical and electronic works combine important issues and themes with music – from mental health, to sustainability, to women’s suffrage. Her most recent work for full orchestra, Speakeasy, was commissioned by the Jackson Symphony Orchestra and premiered in 2021. Using the 100^th anniversary of women’s suffrage as a thematic springboard, Speakeasy: Four vignettes of the 1920s, is a four-movement homage to the music, philosophy, fashion and excess that flared into being in the 1920s and become exemplified by the empowered Flapper. Audrey’s orchestral, chamber, and electronic compositions have been commissioned and performed by the Lansing Symphony Orchestra, Jackson Symphony Orchestra, Salina Symphony, Bellingham Electronic Arts Festival, and Sitka Music Festival, among others.

Audrey is a performing member of the staff clarinet choir at the Detroit Symphony, and is a 2022 Women’s Leadership Program graduate of the Yale School of Management. She holds a Master’s degree in Music Composition from Western Washington University. 

Audrey is the recipient of an upcoming artist residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat, an invitation-only residency based on previous artistic output. Audrey is currently collaborating on a musical with husband and composer Patrick Harlin, and her orchestral work Speakeasy kicks off the 23-24 Salina Symphony season. Her 2023 chamber work for string quartet and harp,Queen’s Bath, Kauai, was premiered by Lansing Symphony musicians this past spring as part their “LSO at the Robin Theater” chamber music series.