Kelly Joe Richardson, a native of Murray Utah, began playing the piano at age four. His grandfather began teaching him the violin five years later. Since then, Kelly went on to study violin and viola with many fine teachers, including Oscar Chausow, William Preucil, Eudice Shapiro, David Dalton, Andres Cardenes and Daniel Shindaryov. He completed a degree in musical composition at Utah State University, and was accepted into the University of Southern California’s prestigious Composition for the Music Industry program where he studied with many great composers including Bruce Broughton, Jerry Goldsmith, David Raksin, Fred Steiner, Henry Mancini, Earle Hagen, Lalo Schifrin and many others. He studied orchestration with Pulitzer Prize-nominated composer Albert Harris alongside Academy Award-nominated composer Frank DeVol. His first film at the University of Southern California was declared the best musical score in the school's history by the USC Film Department. His music has been recorded at Universal, MGM and 20th Century Fox Studios as well as the Steven Spielberg Scoring Stage. His music has been performed at the OK Mozart Festival, Carnegie Hall, Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow by the Moscow State Philharmonic and the Great Hall Named After Shostakovich by the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra in St. Petersburg, Russia. He has written music for the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., the New York Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Juilliard teacher and former New York Philharmonic principal violist Paul Neubauer. His newest composition is a work for solo viola and orchestra, "Seven Tales of Poe" dedicated to Paul Neubauer. His “Battle of Shiloh” was performed last October by the Elbland Philharmonic in Germany. Kelly and his wife Barbara are the parents of three adorable daughters.