Celtic Chamber Music | Lyric Chamber Music

CELTIC CHAMBER MUSIC

Dana Lyn, Violin

Kyle Sanna, Guitar

Jacob Jolliff, Mandolin

Alec Spiegelman, Bass Clarinet

Thursday, November 13, 2025

7.30 p.m.

PROGRAM

Traditional dance tunes from Ireland (reels, jigs, hornpipes, airs) mixed with movements from Bach suites (gigues, allemandes, fugues). The quartet and its various permutations will meld their deep immersion in the Irish/Celtic tradition with the improvisational idioms of jazz and bluegrass and their arranging skills as composers.

ABOUT THE MUSICIANS

Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist and composer Dana Lyn has collaborated with a wide variety of artists including Hank Roberts, Stew and Heidi Rodewald, Taylor Mac, Heather Christian, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, D’Angelo, Bruce Springsteen, Natalie Merchant, and string quartets Brooklyn Rider and The Apple Hill String Quartet. She has written music for short films, New York Times’ audio stories, and for dance; her own musical projects include the sextet “Mother Octopus“, a duo with guitarist Kyle Sanna, a collaboration with poet Louis De Paor, and a keyboard trio with Matt Glassmeyer and Brian Drye.

Her most recent album “A Point on a Slow Curve (In-a-Circle Records)” is a suite of music for septet and four voices; “brilliantly capturing the rigours and abandon of creativity (A Closer Listen)”, it has been featured on WNYC’s New Sounds program and noted for it “singular expressionism, incorporating forms common to the modern jazz idiom alongside chamber, choir, folk, and avant-garde (Dave Sumner, The Bird is the Worm).”

Hailed by The New Yorker as a “first-rate, versatile musician”, guitarist Kyle Sanna’s musical practice includes composition, improvisation, the recording studio, live coding, and the traditional music of Ireland. His compositions have been performed at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, the Royal Opera House in Oman, Sydney’s ABC studios, the National Recital Hall in Taipei, New York’s Carnegie Hall, and many points between. He has received commissions from Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra, Brooklyn Rider, Palaver Strings, The Knights, and others.

Kyle Sanna performs regularly as an improvising guitarist with Ground Patrol and Kinan Azmeh’s CityBand, and performs music based in the Irish tradition with Dana Lyn, Seamus Egan, and Martin Hayes. He studied jazz at the University of Oregon and composition at France’s Université Lumière Lyon II. He is a 2024 recipient of the New York State Council on the Arts individual artist grant. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Jacob Jolliff is one of the world’s premier contemporary mandolinists. In 2011,he graduated from Berklee College of Music, having studied there on a full scholarship. The following year, in 2012, he won the USA’s National Mandolin Championship in Winfield, KS. A fixture of the bluegrass scene, he has performed and collaborated with Béla Fleck, Tony Trischka, Michael Daves, Grant Gordy, Wes Corbett, and Alex Hargreaves, to name a few. Additionally, throughout his 20s, he toured as a member of the groups Joy Kills Sorrow and Yonder Mountain String Band.

Currently, his focus is on his own ensemble, The Jacob Jolliff Band—one of the most cutting-edge progressive bluegrass groups on the scene today. They’ve released three albums, the most recent of which, “Instrumentals, Vol. 2: Mandolin Mysteries,” dropped in May 2024. The band plays a combination of complex original instrumental music and vocal repertoire that spans from trad bluegrass to unlikely pop covers. Improvisation and the ensemble interplay are at the forefront.

Multi-instrumentalist Alec Spiegelman grew up in Harrisburg, PA, where, in the presence of his father’s extensive record collection, he learned to love jazz from the ‘30s and ‘40s. He studied clarinet in the music program at Susquehanna Township School District, led by trumpet player Bill Perbetsky, who connected Alec with the great reed teachers Dave Godshall and Tom Strohman. Through an active community of jazz appreciators in the city, Alec also began to study with the trumpeter/composer Ronnie Waters.

While earning a physics degree at Harvard College, Alec diverting himself with musical pursuits in and around Boston. He studied music theory with David Lewin, and learned to play R&B tenor sax under the direction of Doo Wop Survivor Little Joe Cook. He did further studies with improvising masters Ran Blake, Steve Lacy, Bob Brookmeyer, and others, at the New England Conservatory and moved to Brooklyn in 2009. Alec taught himself to play guitar and piano, and began writing and singing songs with his longtime band, Cuddle Magic.

Alec has backed up artists including Amanda Palmer, Okkervil River, Anais Mitchell, and Iris Dement. He has produced records for Ana Egge, Taylor Ashton, and the David Wax Museum, and has played on numerous television scores, including the Emmy Award-winning animated Frog & Toad on Apple TV, and a Dora (the Explorer) reboot on Paramount+, as well as for commercials, films, and on countless albums. He now teaches math at a public high school.