Album Notes

About "Looking for the Early Opener"

"Looking for the Early Opener" gets its title from one such activity that might occur before sleep comes--a sort of bridge between a night of revelry ending and a new day beginning.

I like to view this recording mainly as a thank you to all of the musicians I've had the pleasure of playing with and being influenced by in my past four years as a resident in New York City. This recording has on it several tunes of my own, though I wouldn't consider myself a tunesmith by any means. It is once in a blue moon that a tune comes into my head, and it usually is in the middle of the night, and a miracle if I remember it in the morning.

Dana Lyn

WHAT'S BEEN SAID:

James O'Brien, Nov. 2005, The Irish Edition

"Dana Lyn is a New York City-based fiddler and this is an excellent introduction to her music.  She has a very special approach to her playing: such fluid bowing, precise fingering, imaginative ornamentation.  This all points to a wonderful traditional player.  But her willingness to include occasional viola, piano, bass and even steel guitar show that she has a highly developed sense of the music.

"Her fiddling makes you feel you are sitting there in the room with her as she plays, flowing freely and effortlessly from one tune to the next.  She captures all the excitement and leaves you breathless... The overall effect is of intimate and occasionally disturbing warmth and contact as Lyn transports you.  Beautiful."


Earle Hitchener, Feb. 2005, Irish Echo and Wall Street Journal:

"Looking for the Early Opener" displays a pace, detail, fluidity, imagination, and bowing mastery that would make any accomplished Irish-born player sit up and take notice. She blends the best elements of her conservatory training -- fidelity to melodic structure, accurate note rendering, knowledge of harmonics -- with her own personalized reshaping of technique not just to "sound" traditional but to "be" traditional. It's a transformation few classical players can make successfully, and Lyn has.

"Released in 2004 and received by me late in the year, "Looking for the Early Opener" was a strong honorable mention in the Irish Echo's list of the best traditional albums, and I recommend this splendid solo debut even more enthusiastically here."