A life-long musician, Dr. McKee has extensive experience in performance, education, special projects, events, management, recordings and administration. His mother was a concert cellist who was awarded a scholarship to Peabody, while his father was a musician (trombone and vocal), teacher (a 42 year member of MENC) and administrator (School District Director of Music, responsible for all choral and instrumental music at elementary, middle and high school levels). His father also was selected to represent U.S. music educators at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and gave many presentations at MENC national conferences. His brother played string bass and trombone and Mike played guitar, piano, sang, arranged and directed choirs. McKee was extremely active in music at all levels in his education, including having leads in many musical and dramatic works through high school, being the Student Director of the Madrigals, then touring nationally for four years with a men's Glee Club and performing in the title role of the musical "Most Happy Fellow" in his senior year in college.

From the late 1980s through the late 1990s, he worked with Mstislav Rostropovich, Wynton Marsalis, Frederica von Stade, Bob McGrath, Pete Seeger, The Canadian Brass and many others. On a regional basis, he has performed several times with the Washington Chorus (nee The Washington Oratorio Society) at the Kennedy Center and at Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts. In the community, he performs every week and has recorded (solo and choral) with the Contemporary Choir of St. Thomas a Becket in Reston.

McKee was chosen in 1995 to be the inaugural Director of Development of Music Educators National Conference (MENC), the professional association for music teachers in the U.S. He was one of six Directors who formed the Senior Executive Team of the world's largest arts organization. MENC is an over one hundred-year-old, international, $6M budget, sixty staff, seventy thousand member professional association. He was charged with the responsibility of coordinating the changing of a member services organization into a new era of external affairs. Primary emphasis was placed on the establishment of a high profile Advisory Council, on structuring significant new relationships with other music organizations (such as Jazz at Lincoln Center, the New York Philharmonic, Julliard) and in obtaining corporate partnerships (Texaco, Lockheed Martin, and others).

While teaching for six years at Langley High School (ending in mid-2007), he worked in cooperation with the Choral and Orchestral Departments, being the Master of Ceremonies at concerts, doing music education with audiences, writing program notes about the composers and compositions and traveling to Europe with the Orchestra as an MC, advisor and chaperone.

McKee is also known for his accomplishments in project supervision, program development and evaluation, publications, publicity, marketing and public relations. He has worked in a broad variety of fields, including the fine arts, healthcare, higher education, the environment, athletics and aviation. He has been awarded many grants which have supported work in the fields of music, program evaluation, attitudes and values, youth counseling, education, gerontology, substance abuse, and medical, business, environmental and music scholarships. His work has also supported the areas of aging, churches and schools. Dr. McKee is the former Executive Director of a hospice, Chairman of a multi-disciplinary college department, and author of numerous articles and books in the fields of Medical Sociology and Social Psychology. His college text, Social Problems, published by Random House, was a national best seller in that area. He has been on the full time faculty of the Pennsylvania State University Medical Center, Purdue University, The University of Notre Dame and Georgetown University School of Medicine, and an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland and The George Washington University. He has graduate degrees from Columbia University and the University of Notre Dame.