Gerald R. Kechley (18/03/1919 - 10/07/2021), an American composer. In 1955 he became a member of the composition faculty of the university of Washington School of music, retiring in 1989.

Gerald Kechley is a Seattle-born composer and Professor Emeritus, University of Washington School of Music, where he taught theory and composition from 1955-89. Prior to that time, he taught at the University of Michigan and served as Director of Music at Centralia Junior College. He studied composition with George F. McKay and Aaron Copland, has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, several ASCAP Serious Music Awards, and a variety of other honors. His sons, David Kechley, currently Professor of Music and Chairman of the Music Department at Williams College, and Robert Kechley of Seattle, are also established composers who have received a number of commissions and performances. Gerald Kechley's works have been commissioned and performed by the Seattle Symphony and George Gershwin Memorial Foundation, Pacific Lutheran University Choir of the West. Wenatchee Valley Symphony Associa­ tion, Northwest Chamber Chorus, St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, and University of Portland, among others. Publications include works for band, piano and percussion. choral works and solo songs. Kechley's compositions, performed throughout the United States and abroad, include an opera, The Golden Lion, premiered by the Univesity of Washington Opera Theater under Stanley Chapple, two symphonies, works for chorus and orchestra, chamber works for piano, woodwinds, and strings, brass and percussion in various combinations, and a .1 large catalog of sacred and secular choral works.