As a vigorous young composer living in the Far West during the 1930s and 1940s, McKay sought to develop a style that would be at once individual and thoroughly American by imbuing many of his compositions with folk-music and nature sounds. Harbor Narrative is scored for large orchestra, featuring many auxiliary instruments. At times bucolic, epic, romantic and mechanistic, the work is an almost onomatopoetic impression of the special character of the Pacific Northwest area. From a Moonlit Ceremony shows McKay’s style moving away from distant European influences and evolving into a transcendent American idiom and is the first of his works to feature themes derived from Native American songs and dances. With the composition of Evocation Symphony, McKay’s maturing style is in full flower, summing up the past and combining it with a statement of hope for a wondrous future.