Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cydney McQuillan-Grace. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Cydney, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

I would say my original music is the most meaningful project I’ve worked on. I have been a working performer since I was 13 years old and I believe all of the projects I’ve been a part of before have been preparing me for releasing my own music. There’s nothing more incredible than seeing something you’ve created from nothing come to fruition. It’s the most vulnerable and deeply personal project I’ve ever shared with people. I was very nervous to put my first single out. It was terrifying because when it’s your song there’s no where to hide. It’s your lyrics, its your performance. Intrinsically it’s such a part of who you are and if people don’t like it it’s hard not to take it personally. Now that I’ve released a few songs I realized that there’s nothing to be scared of. Your music won’t be for everyone, but it will find its audience. When your music does find it’s fans there is nothing more satisfying than seeing people relate to your lyrics or dance along to your songs. I cannot wait to release more this year!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I started my performing career in musical theater participating in my first show, The King & I, at the age of 11. I was very shy growing up, but I found that the lights on the stage were so bright that I felt like there was no one there with me and I could be in my own little world. I continued to follow that passion through high school where I attended Educational Center for the Arts, and arts magnet high school, in their music program. I later went on to attend Emerson College for Theater Studies and Berklee College of Music for voice. After school I moved to NYC and started my career as a company member of the touring dance theater company, The MoveShop. I found my true passion in music though. I started in cover bands and expanded to singing backing vocals for different indie bands in the city. This became a huge passion for me and is something that you will hear a lot of in my original music. I also fell into vocal arranging for other artists and recording demo vocals for songwriters. Finally, I started to write and record my original music- which is available on all streaming platforms.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

When I first started writing my own music I had a mentor ask me the question, “If you could only make one album what message would you want your music to leave people with?”. I decided to make it my mission to have my music to be so unabashedly vulnerable and such a fully self expressed version of myself that it gives the people listening permission to do the same. It’s our differences that are our super powers, so let’s uplift and celebrate what makes us unique. This question has really guided all of my choices throughout every inch of this project.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I think it’s vitally important to pay indie artists. Buy their merchandise, buy tickets to their shows, share their videos, social media content, and music on your platforms, add their songs to your Spotify playlists, or just tell a friend about them if you like them. So much time, effort, and money goes into creating music, content, and live performances that if we want to continue to have as much new music in the world we need to support the artists that are creating it. Additionally, we need more places to play. So many performance venues have closed during the pandemic that we need to start utilizing unconventional spaces as performance venues. SOFAR Sounds does a great job of this- but we need much more of it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cydneymcg.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cydneyemcg/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cydneymcgmusic/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@cydneymcquillan-grace7358/videos

Image Credits
Photos by Amplified Stories, Anna Haas, and Brian Michael Suggs