McKay’s Music: The Composer Chronicles: George Frederick McKay’s Musical Trek Through the Landscape of 20th Century America

McKay’s Music is a biography of American Composer George Frederick McKay (1899-1970) including numerous historic photos, programs and historic documents concerning his life and career and the progress of his ancestors across the North American continent over the past 250 years. McKay’s music has been presented by many world famous conductors in the music halls of America, including Leopold Stokowski, Sir Thomas Beecham, Arthur Benjamin, Leonard Slatkin, Richard Hickox and Frederick Fennell. His students have won An Academy Award, the Pulitzer Prize, Grammys, and the National Medal of the Arts. McKay was based in the Pacific Northwest at the University of Washington for 40 years, and his music includes many titles reflective of the Pacific Coast of America. He conducted the Seattle Symphony and other ensembles in several premieres of his works, and also had visiting professorships at the University of Southern California, Oregon, Michigan and Drake. Always interested in folkloric music, he admired and met and exchanged ideas with several powerhouse composers over decades of musicianship, including Bartok, William Grant Still, Gershwin, Villa Lobos and Chavez. His music was performed at the First American Composers Festival at Eastman/Rochester with Howard Hanson conducting, along with an early work by Copland. Several McKay recordings can be heard on NAXOS albums listed actively on Amazon.com.