Andrew McKinley

Andrew McKinley (1903–January 11, 1996) was an American operatic tenor, violinist, music educator, and arts administrator born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Trained initially as a violinist, he entered the Institute of Musical Art — now the Juilliard School — as a violin major in 1922, and by the early 1930s had joined the school's pre-college violin faculty, a position he held until 1970. Though he continued playing violin throughout his life, McKinley became more widely recognized for his singing career, which extended from concert performances in the United States to engagements with major opera companies and symphony orchestras across the country and in Europe.

McKinley's operatic career gained significant momentum in the 1940s. In 1946 he made his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra as the tenor soloist in Verdi's Messa da Requiem, with Frances Yeend as the soprano soloist. That same year he sang in radio broadcasts with the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini, and committed to the Philadelphia La Scala Opera Company for the 1946–1947 season, making his debut with that company as Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana, with Elda Ercole and Herva Nelli alternating as Santuzza. In 1947 he appeared at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera as Malcolm in Verdi's Macbeth.

His most enduring stage legacy stems from his association with composer Gian Carlo Menotti. McKinley created the role of Nika Magadoff in the world premiere of Menotti's The Consul, first in Philadelphia in 1950 and subsequently when the production transferred to Broadway that same year. He reprised the role at La Scala in Milan in 1951 and again with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1953. Also in 1951, he made his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in a performance of Verdi's Requiem under conductor Eugene Ormandy, once again alongside Frances Yeend.

McKinley's second major role creation for Menotti came in 1951, when he was cast as King Kaspar in Amahl and the Night Visitors, a Christmas opera composed for NBC and premiered on Christmas Eve of that year in a national broadcast. Menotti drew heavily on the cast of The Consul for the production. McKinley continued performing the role of Kaspar with the original adult cast members in annual live television broadcasts through 1964, and the company also undertook annual national concert tours of the opera with symphony orchestras across the United States. The production earned a Peabody Award.

His work with the NBC Opera Theatre extended beyond Amahl. In 1952 he filmed Captain Vere in Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd for the organization, and he went on to create two further roles in world premieres for the company: Anuchkin in Bohuslav Martinů's The Marriage in 1953 and the Voice of the Letterbox in Lukas Foss' Griffelkin in 1955. Additional filmed roles for NBC included Herodes in Richard Strauss' Salome (1954), Monostatos in Mozart's The Magic Flute (1956), and Prince Shuisky in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov (1957). He had previously portrayed Prince Shuisky opposite George London's Boris Godunov at the Metropolitan Opera in 1953.

McKinley's concert engagements were equally wide-ranging. In 1952 he appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as the tenor soloist in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 at the Ravinia Festival, alongside Eileen Farrell, Jane Hobson, and Mack Harrell, and that same year sang in Berlioz's Requiem with conductor Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Festival. In 1954 he participated in the inaugural season of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, appearing as Grumio in Vittorio Giannini's The Taming of the Shrew. That year he also sang with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, including the role of Prince Shuisky opposite Jerome Hines and the title role in Berlioz's La damnation de Faust. He returned to Baltimore in 1956 as Camille in Lehár's The Merry Widow. In 1957 he was the tenor soloist in the world premiere of Cecil Effinger's oratorio The Invisible Fire, performed at Hoch Auditorium in Lawrence, Kansas, with the Kansas City Philharmonic under Thor Johnson.

Beyond performing, McKinley maintained a long career in arts administration and education. He served as director of the Bronx House Music School from 1923 until his resignation in 1958. That same year he founded the Suzanne and Nathaniel Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, a summer arts camp in Wheatley Heights, Long Island, and helped establish a forty-concert summer festival sponsored by the center. He remained involved with the organization into the later years of his life. After retiring from singing in the mid-1960s, he continued to perform occasionally as a violinist in ensemble settings. He was married to concert pianist and academic Lily Miki McKinley. McKinley died at the age of 92 at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan.