JESSICA KELLY
Jessica Kelly is a British composer and songwriter for media. From 2019-2022 Jessica has been selected by BAFTA as a composer in the BAFTA Crew Games programme which highlights future creative leaders in the games industry. Game credits as composer include award winning NEWFOUND COURAGE and most recently Jessica was credited as Score Co-ordinator for BAFTA nominated ORI AND THE WILL OF THE WISPS.
Following her love of songwriting, Jessica has recently joined Moonbug Entertainment's hit kids show COCOMELON as Audio Lead, Lyricist and Composer. After moving to several streaming platforms including Amazon Prime and Netflix, Variety named COCOMELON as the top-ranked Netflix show of 2020. With over 92 billion views, the COCOMELON YouTube channel is the second most-subscribed channel in the world.
In 2020, Jessica was invited by The Ivors Academy to sit as a judge for the category Best Original Video Game Score. Speaking engagements have included BBC Radio, The Royal Tunbridge Wells International Music Festival, EGX (along with the GamesIndustry.biz Careers Fair) and The Women in Games European Conference.
Within the theatre world, Jessica has worked closely with Aulos Productions since 2014. Her music accompanied their show GOBLAND FOR THE GOBLINS which was announced as the Winner of Best Children’s Show (Derek Awards) in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2017. 2019 saw the company's first UK - wide tour where Jessica wrote music for their plays ANTIGONE NA H'ÉIREANN and WOMEN OF THE MOURNING FIELDS. Jessica joined them for a Sci-Fi play performed at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre where she helped some young actors and composers from Strange Town and East Lothian Youth Theatre create their own soundtrack as part of Youth Theatre Arts Scotland's event Emergence 2019.
In 2018 Jessica received the award for Best Music Video in the RoundGlass Music Awards, New York for her song/score to the multi-award winning animated short LITTLE THING by Or Kan-tor, and was also nominated for Record of the Year and Enlightened Musician of the Year. Prior to this in August 2017 Jessica was nominated for the European Talent WDR Filmscore Award at Soundtrack Cologne, Germany and was invited to perform her LITTLE THING song live to screen at the award ceremony. Jessica was presented with the first European Talent Award Special Mention in the history of the event in recognition of her unique approach, and her work has spawned a new award category that is now an annual fixture.
Growing up in the English countryside she developed her compositional voice under the guidance of village local Sir Richard Stilgoe, and as a teenager received a full scholarship to learn the organ with James McVinnie of Westminster Abbey. Jessica has a BMus Hons from The University of Edinburgh, majoring in piano performance under the internationally renowned composer-pianist Tanya Ekanayaka. She continued at the University graduating from MSc Composition for Screen in 2016, followed by studies in Sound Production and Recording at The Academy of Music and Sound.
An internship at Post Electric Studios with Rod Jones (Idlewild) helped Jessica develop her production skills, and she has assisted and been mentored by games composer Gareth Coker (Halo Infinite, Ori and the Blind Forest, Minecraft, ARK Survival Evolved).