Hailed as “first-rate, versatile musicians” by The New Yorker and “a top-notch fiddle-and-guitar duo” by The New York Times, Dana Lyn and Kyle Sanna connect the dots between their experience as composers and improvisers in New York City’s rich musical community and their deep admiration for traditional Irish music. Rooted in this tradition, the branches of Lyn and Sanna’s collaboration extend to include projected animations, augmented reality, dance, video, and orchestral compositions. The duo has collaborated with some of the greatest interpreters of Irish music, including Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill, Cillian Vallely, Kevin Burke, Mick McAuley, and Seamus Egan, and with choreographers Darrah Carr Byrne, Catherine Gallant, and Seán Curran. They have received commissions from New York’s Irish Arts Center and from Palaver Strings. The duo’s music will be featured in the upcoming Ken Burns film The American Revolution.
Since 2015 their projects have been focused on themes of environmental fragility. “The Great Arc” and “The Coral Suite” celebrate biodiversity through Lyn’s artwork, while also highlighting pressing environmental issues, and their work for string orchestra, “Under the Sea-Wind”, amplifies Rachel Carson’s message that the health of the planet rests on the balance of relationships between life and the cycles of nature.
Since 2022 Dana Lyn & Kyle Sanna have held a performance residency at Brooklyn’s esteemed venue Barbès. They perform every last Monday of the month with an invited guest. Past guests have included Mick McAuley (accordion), Ivan Goff (uilleann pipes, flute), Katie Linnane (fiddle), Matt Kanelos (piano), Seamus Egan (flute, tenor banjo, guitar), Jefferson Hamer (guitar, voice), Nathan Koci (accordion), Johnny Gandelsman (violin), Matt Darriau (flute, clarinet), Utsav Lal (piano), Max ZT (hammered dulcimer), John Morrow (tenor banjo), Anna Colliton (bodhran), Alexandra Williamson (dance), Jacob Jolliff (mandolin), Isaac Alderson (uilleann pipes, flute), Joe Brent (mandolin), Mike McGinnis (clarinet, sax, flute), Alasdair White (fiddle), and Alec Spiegelman (clarinet).
