In 2023-2024, the Formosa Quartet will be recording four of George Frederick McKay’s reflective, playful, and intricate string quartets with Seattle’s GRAMMY award-winning music director and principal conductor of the Northwest Sinfonia, David Sabee, as producer. This world-premiere recording will be the first commercial release of these string quartets (said to be McKay's favorite compositional form) and will celebrate the 125th anniversary of his birth in 2024-2025. The Formosa Quartet will be recording these works at the Bastyr Chapel in Kenmore, WA.

George Frederick McKay (June 11, 1899-October 4, 1970) was a prolific composer and author, born a year after Gershwin, whose music evokes “…a vigorous blend of influences, including Civil War Era folksongs sung to him by his grandparents; old Fiddlers' Tunes handed down in the family; Northwest Native American Songs and Dances, and Avant-Garde satire from the Seattle urban scene” (George Frederick McKay Estate).

Over his lifetime, he composed several hundred musical works, of which 250 volumes have been published, and taught at the University of Washington, Seattle for 41 years. During his time at the university, he brought talented musicians such as William Grant Still, Béla Bartók and Frederick Fennel to Seattle and among his many students, mentored William Bolcom (Pulitzer prizewinning composer), Goddard Lieberson (President of Columbia Records from 1956-1971 and 1973-1975), and Earl Hawley Robinson (composer, arranger and folk music singer-songwriter of popular songs and Hollywood films). Throughout his lifetime, he also met and conversed with Gershwin, Villa Lobos, and Chavez as part of his University hosting activities, and he mentored and collaborated with John Cage in the late 1930's.

McKay String Quartets No. 1 and 2 were written during the 1930's and Quartets No. 3 and 4 were completed during a sabbatical leave in the 1950's at Seaside Oregon and Balboa Island, CA. McKay String Quartet No. 2 was performed by the Philadelphia String Quartet and it was later broadcast on NBC 1939, performed by players from Toscanini's Symphony of that era.

The Formosa Quartet’s recording will be first commercial release of these string quartets.