The NYChillharmonic is a 22 piece ensemble/collective lead by Sara McDonald and located in NYC. The group is comprised of musicians that hail from all over the globe, but currently live and/or go to school within the five boroughs. While most people would assume that a band of this size and instrumentation would function as a traditional big band, the overall sound of the ensemble truly encompasses progressive rock, indie-pop, and classical genres.

 

 

This particular cast of (occasionally) rotating characters, came into existence during the  late spring of 2014. Sara, the bandleader/composer/arranger of the project, had spent the last year writing for ensembles of various shapes and sizes, before settling on a 22 piece ensemble that would (she hoped) become the band of her dreams. It did. The group began performing all over the city at any and every venue that was willing and able to accommodate a group of their size. So far The Chill, for short, has managed to play about once a month at various rock and jazz venues within Manhattan and Brooklyn. They made their Lincoln Center debut at The David Rubenstein Atrium in December of 2015, and their International Festival of Arts and Ideas debut in June of 2016.

 

 

Sara has managed to spread the word of The Chill, so to speak, by taking the music to different states, as well as oversees, in order to promote the work that has been done in New York. Groups that have featured the music of The NYChillharmonic are, The Urbana Pops Symphony in Urbana Illinois, The Cologne University Big Band in Cologne Germany, The Jazz Composers Big Band in New Jersey, and the Jazzrausch Big Band in Munich Germany.

 

 

The music of The NYChillharmonic has been featured on WNYC Souncheck, WBAI NY, Buzz Artist, All About Jazz, ARTE, Okay Player, Revive Music, ThrdCoast, The Revue, Divergent Paths with Dan Dunford and has also been written about in Hot House Jazz Magazine,  Elusive Magazine, Spiegel, and The Urbana Post.