Dr. Kelly Neill is an assistant professor of music at Harding University, where he teaches voice and conducts choirs.  Kelly is the Department Chair for the Harding music department, and he conducts the Concert Choir, a 90-member group consisting of mostly non-majors, and the Chamber Singers, a 16-voice highly-select ensemble.  He has also taught music appreciation and conducting classes.  Harding University is located in Searcy, AR, and has over 6000 students. 

As a choral singer he has sung with Conspirare, the Robert Shaw Festival Singers, Santa Fe Desert Chorale, and the Kansas City Chorale.  He has been a soloist with the Pittsburgh Bach Choir, Abilene Philharmonic Orchestra, Western Colorado Chorale and chamber music series in Colorado and Arkansas.  Solo performances include Mozart’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, Howells’ Requiem, Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb, and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.  In opera, Kelly has sung the title role in The Student Prince, Rodolfo (La Bohème), Remandado (Carmen), Alfred (Die Fledermaus) and conducted La fille du regiment.  Kelly is active as a clinician and adjudicator, and has conducted several festival choirs.

From 2007 to 2009, Dr. Neill was on a leave of absence from Harding to pursue doctoral work at the University of Missouri—Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance, where he studied voice with Dr. Rebecca Sherburn.  He finished his DMA in Voice Performance in May of 2009 and returned to Harding. 

Before coming to Harding in 2004, Neill taught middle school and high school music for seven years in Delta, Colorado.  He spent six years teaching band, and under the leadership of Neill and co-director John White, the program grew dramatically in numbers and in students selected for All-State Band.  In 2002 the band won the 3A State Marching Championship.  In the fall of 2003, Neill began teaching choir for the school, and was honored in 2004 with Colorado’s prestigious Boettcher Award for teaching.   While teaching in Colorado, he also founded the Grand Mesa Singers and served as the conductor of the Valley Symphony Chorus. 

Kelly attended Abilene Christian University, where he studied voice with Julie Pruett and tuba with Gary Lewis, Richard Morgan and Blaine Hinton. He was student director of the Wind Ensemble and the A Cappella Chorus, earning Bachelors Degrees in Instrumental Music and Vocal Music.  He then taught two years of middle school and high school music in Texas before attending Baylor University, where he graduated with his Master’s in Choral Conducting, studying conducting with Donald Bailey and voice with Jack Coldiron.