New York Virtuoso Singers perform William Thomas McKinley's "Sir Orfeo", Richard Stoltzman, clarinet

A highly regarded and well-known composer, William Thomas McKinley (b.1938) learned both classical and jazz piano at a very early age, becoming the youngest member of the Musician's Union at the age of twelve. To date, he has composed over 300 works, is listed in the Grove's Dictionary of Music, and has received commissions from the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, the Fromm Foundation, and the Naumburg Foundation. His many awards and grants include an award and citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, eight NEA grants, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination. McKinley studied with many renowned composers, including Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, and Gunther Schuller, and as a jazz pianist, he has performed and recorded with Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Rufus Reed, Roy Haynes, and Billy Hart, to name a few.

In 1992, McKinley founded MMC Recordings with the goal of connecting composers with the finest orchestras, conductors, and performers in the world, producing recordings, and creating an archive of modern classical music. The label's primary collaborators include clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, Gerard Schwarz, Marin Alsop, Kirk Trevor, Gil Rose, as well as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, Boston Modern Orchestra, and the Nonet for the Quintet of the Americas.