Jessica McKee

Appointed Fall 2022

Jessica McKee is an active collaborator throughout the D.C. metropolitan area. Passionate about chamber music, she is a founding member of the Iris Music Project, an outreach-based chamber group that began at Charles E. Smith Life Communities in Rockville, MD. The Iris Piano Trio performed regularly both at Charles E. Smith and in the greater DMV area as well as working one-on-one with residents on a daily basis. McKee has also held adjunct teaching positions at various local institutions including Montgomery Community College, the University of Maryland, College Park and Washington Adventist University, and has been a visiting artist at institutions such as Penn State and Illinois State’s Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts. She is currently a member of UMD’s collaborative piano faculty, primarily performing for recitals throughout the academic year along with other teaching, coaching and coordination duties. Outside the university, she is an active performer, frequently collaborating with both students and professionals in recordings, recitals and chamber music concerts in the D.C. area as well as throughout the United States. She has performed at such venues as Strathmore Mansion, the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Arts Club of Washington, various D.C. embassies and the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage with members of the National Symphony Orchestra. She has frequently performed with members of D.C. military ensembles and other local groups such as the Annapolis Chamber Players, members of the Alexandria Symphony, Great Noise Ensemble and Inscape, and has performed at the American Trombone workshop, the International Saxophone Symposium and the International Trumpet Guild Conference. Her playing can be heard on professional recordings including "Consonant Connections," "A Winter’s Night," "Timequake" and "Dedications," as well as a recording of Beethoven’s cello sonatas.
McKee holds both her master of music and doctor of musical arts degrees from the University of Maryland, College Park where she studied with Rita Sloan and worked closely with the Maryland Opera Studio, serving as both rehearsal and performance pianist for several MOS productions. Additionally, she had the privilege to work with almost the entirety of the University’s distinguished instrumental faculty on a regular basis. She spent two summers in the collaborative piano program at the Aspen Music Festival. McKee also attended the University of Michigan, where she studied piano with Logan Skelton and Douglas Humphreys, was instructed by Martin Katz and Katherine Collier, and played violin in the Philharmonic Orchestra.
McKee maintains a small private teaching studio at her home in Maryland, where she lives with her husband, her two young daughters and her pets.