We recently connected with Sara McDonald and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sara, thanks for joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

When I first started this band, I was 23 and had no money or means to really get anything accomplished. My friends played for me for free, I never made a profit from shows and I was a terrible bandleader.

The NYChillharmonic used to be 22-pieces, I eventually reduced the overall size to 18 – replacing some doubling redundancies. Why have four trombones when you can have two and a sousaphone?

I’d stand on stage and conduct behind my back with my eyes closed. I was terrified to make eye contact with anyone and I wasn’t sure how to convey my own ideas. I was a wreck! But, I persevered. Something about writing for this many people and getting to hear every note live kept me coming back for more. I’m just grateful people stuck around long enough for it to get good – or at least better than what it was.

Eventually I realized that this project wasn’t going anywhere unless I really put it out there. I wanted to tour and release music and most importantly, build connections with music communities all over the world so that I could bring my work to different places and have it played by ensembles that would have otherwise never heard of me or my songs. So I got creative.

First, I started reaching out to venues in places I wanted to play. I began with the midwest because I have family there and knew that if I crashed and burned at least I’d literally have a place to do the crashing and burning. After I successfully convinced a few clubs that I had touring history (I didn’t really) I began posting on Facebook asking for recommendations for musicians that lived in the states I planned to travel to. Slowly but surely, I put ensembles together. At first, before I truly organized my own groups from scratch, I played with various big bands in Europe, and did some other state side gigs with established groups. Eventually, I was able to afford to bring my own rhythm section on the road. And by afford, I mean spend all of my savings and overdraft my checking account every single day while working full time.

From there, I’d build each ensemble around the core group from NYC. After a lot of trial and error we came up with a system that worked. People began to understand the overarching goal of the project and many musicians began contacting me directly to ask if they could play in my band whenever I was coming through their town. Now, we’re able to pull off a couple longer tours per year. Keep in mind it’s an 18-piece band and only five of us come from the city – this means I have to hire 13 new people for every gig, everywhere we go. For our most recent 7-day tour, I hired 91 different musicians to fill out the band each night. That’s a lot of time spent emailing and DM’ing.

But it works! The risks do pay off. My band gets heard, people come to shows, I’ve met hundreds of musicians all over the world and always have a digital rolodex of people to call and play with just about everywhere I go. It’s perpetually a ton of work to get this band moving, but it’s so rewarding and so fun every step of the way. It feels like a family – a global community that we all contribute to and take care of. A blessing, if you will.

Granted, I don’t think a month long tour is in our future anytime soon, unless we reach TOOL level fame with TOOL level guarantees. Even then, I think they’re probably making most of their money from merch. (Don’t quote me on that.)

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Howdy! I’m a musician that has a really big band called The NYChillharmonic.

The ensemble is 18-pieces large and while it looks like a big band it is really anything but. We play all of my original compositions / arrangements / orchestrations. I’d say the primary genres are progressive-rock, indie, alternative, sometimes a little classical and jazz. I sing and play a small synthesizer while a real pianist does most of the heavy lifting from the rhythm section.

Outside of this, I also play French horn, and some piano. I freelance on French horn and occasionally write and arrange music for other people. I work full time in the music industry in marketing/management/event promotion. I get to work from home which allows for some flexibility when it comes to touring and creating in general.

The band tours pretty regularly for an 18-piece outfit. We have an orchestral single release Friday, 4/21. This song was recorded with the staple group plus an 8-piece choir and 60-piece orchestra in Prague! We’ll celebrate this release in NYC and Ithaca and then we have a few spring shows and a big summer tour that I have yet to announce.

Touring with this many people is a TON of work but super fun and rewarding when all is said and done. I also TM, book my own shows, advance everything, etc. I work 100+ hours a week realistically when you take into account all of my ongoing endeavors. Definitely not a brag of any kind! My band is just giant and expensive so I have to keep it all moving.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Perhaps, some people who work “regular jobs” and use their disposable income on fun, recreational things might have a hard time understanding why someone like me is so eager to commit financial suicide for my artistic projects. Obviously everyone has different priorities and there have been plenty of times in my life where I’ve thought, if I just worked my day job and saved I would be so comfortable. But I’d also probably be extremely bored, because I want to do what I’m doing – it’s that simple.

First of all, my band is huge, expenses are crazy high comparatively speaking, and logistically it can be a nightmare – if you let it be. Leading a big band in every sense of the word is a massive undertaking. Touring that big band and releasing music all on your own with no professional team is also tough. It’s obviously not for everyone. You can say that about literally every profession and passion in this world though.

I’m a big planner. I love organizing shows, writing music, planning releases and tours, reaching out to press, hiring band members, you name it. Being in control is probably a trauma response but I’d like to think I thrive in positions of my own making. I’m all about creating my own opportunities. This definitely stems from my military upbringing that forced me to move every 1-2 years all over the world. I loved the change, I loved being immersed in a brand new environment and finding my place within it. More often than not, that place didn’t really exist, so I’d carve it out for myself.

There isn’t really anything within my character that indicates being a natural born leader. If I don’t want to do something, I won’t do it. If I have a strong idea and a passionate inclination to explore said idea however, I will be hell bent on seeing it through. It is truly impossible to deter me from a goal. If I want it to happen, it’s happening.

We’ve all pursued some thing with aplomb at some point because that thing was important to us. The NYChillharmonic is important to me – and while it may seem like a hard and unreasonable pursuit to someone that doesn’t work within a creative field, the drive to successfully nurture a project of any kind, is in my opinion, generally relatable.

Have you ever had to pivot?

As soon as I started teaching after college I knew it wasn’t for me. I kept my teaching gigs going for about a year but was aware that I needed to seek out other sorts of employment to support my creative endeavors. I was always interested in booking, touring, etc. Again, I’m a big planner! So I spent years working my way into the industry as a freelance booking agent and tour manager, then booking assistant at a big corporate agency, eventually going on to become an agent and so on. I’ve now worked in management and marketing, promotion, etc. I’ve learned an extreme amount about the music industry as a whole. I value and appreciate my work and have been able to make well-informed decisions about my own musical undertakings with the skills and insights I’ve acquired throughout these years as a music industry professional.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://colbertartists.com/artists/nychillharmonic/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nychillharmonic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thenychillharmonic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nychillharmonic
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@nychillharmonic

Image Credits
Brian Hogan, Taylor Donskey, Moers Festival Photographer, Liz Maney, Anna Budinger, John Huntington