Mission Statement
The Ross McKee Foundation seeks to improve the musical culture of the Bay Area by providing financial assistance to local pianists and the organizations that support them via grants for performances, education, and scholarships.
The Ross McKee Foundation was formed in 1992 in honor of pianist and educator, Ross McKee who founded the Music and Arts Institute of San Francisco in 1939 and taught piano there until his death in 1987. The Foundation has operated as a private nonprofit foundation committed to piano education and performance and has an impressive history of support for the piano culture in the Bay Area. Over the past 32 years, the Foundation has awarded more than $2.5 million in grants to hundreds of pianists and music organizations. Through its grants and projects, the Foundation has endeavored to realize the original mission that Ross McKee set forth: “to enrich our lives with beauty and understanding through the language of music.”
In addition to the Foundation’s signature project of sponsoring an annual piano
competition for young pianists, other programs include funding local arts presenters and organizations that produce concerts and commission new works for piano, sponsoring music education and piano lessons in schools, awarding scholarships to young pianists and composers, and even directly supporting individual local pianists through the difficult years of the pandemic — these are the ways in which the Ross McKee Foundation continues its efforts to enrich our lives with beauty and understanding.
Ross McKee Foundation Leadership
Officers
Patricia Taylor Lee, President
Larry Stites, Treasurer
Anthony Angelo, Secretary
Board Members
Jeff Osammon
Nicholas Pavkovic
Gary Rust
Elizabeth Schumann
Jim (“Sky”) Schuyler
Executive Administrator
executivedirector@rossmckeefoundation.org
President Emeritus
Roger Gross
History
The Foundation had its beginnings in the Music and Arts Institute of San Francisco, founded by Ross McKee. The Institute was incorporated in 1939 in San Francisco, California, and moved to its Pacific Heights campus in 1947. Upon Ross McKee’s death, the Institute closed and the property was sold in 1989. From the sale of the property, The Ross McKee Foundation for the Musical Arts was incorporated in 1989 and began operation as a private nonprofit foundation.
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About Ross McKee, Pianist
Ross McKee was born in 1915 and raised in Everett, Washington. He studied piano and graduated from the Manning School of Music. His teachers included Ernst von Dohnányi, Alexander Tcherepnin, Paul Pierre McNeely, John Crogan Manning, Wager Swayne, and Rosalyn Tureck. He began teaching piano in San Francisco in 1931 and performed locally as well as throughout the United States.
Originally a faculty member of the music department of Golden Gate College, Mr. McKee incorporated the Music and Arts Institute in 1939 and, after World War II, he moved his school to the former Japanese Consulate on Alta Plaza. The Institute offered both Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees. Ross McKee died in 1987 at age 72, He has left a legacy of support for talented young people in music.