George Frederick McKay was the first graduate in composition studies at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., in 1923, where he studied under Christian Sinding and Selim Palmgren. McKay attributed his appreciation of pure melody and the importance of folk culture to his association with Sinding, with whom he corresponded over several decades until Sinding's death. McKay later authored a poignant article concerning Sinding's time in America for Etude Magazine (November 1944 issue). Palmgren nominated McKay's violin sonata, composed at Eastman, for the Pulitzer Prize. Howard Hanson invited McKay back to Eastman many times between 1925 and 1960 for performances of the composer's music. McKay's "From the Black Hills" was performed by the Eastman Symphony and conducted by Hanson in the first American Composers Festival at Eastman in 1925, along with an early work by Aaron Copland and music of other contemporary composers. McKay's initial college studies began in accounting at Washington State University, and continued in music at the University of Washington under Carl Paige Wood. In his early student days in Seattle, the young composer experimented with jazz, ragtime and romantic art songs.
