Dana Lyn – A Point On a Slow Curve
Instrumental Ensemble
In A Circle Records (inacircle-records.com/releases)
It took eight years for experimental visual artist Jay DeFeo to complete her mixed media painting The Rose in the 60s. The Rose is over ten feet high and weighs more than one ton. It is this impressively textured and radiant work that drew American composer and violinist Dana Lyn to start her own eight-year compositional journey. The result is A Point on a Slow Curve, a nine-movement sonic poem parallelling the creation of The Rose.
Scored for female choir, violin, clarinet, cello, bassoon, vibraphone, bass and drums, A Point on a Slow Curve is experimental in nature, sometimes wild and chaotic, sometimes angelic. The improvisatory sections are tightly connected with contrapuntal writing, depicting the long process of artistic creation. In each movement, Lyn matches the textures of the painting beautifully. She creates endless interconnected lines but somehow the work remains austere and symmetrical in its expression. It is precisely this combination of chaos and uniformity that reflects the scale of The Rose. As the painting illuminates everything from its centre, so does Lyn’s music. That is especially obvious in three movements depicting major drafts of the work in progress – Death Rose, White Rose and, finally, The Rose.
The ensemble playing is exemplary and it includes the composer herself on violin. Lyn’s unconventional music really benefits from the musicians’ improvisational skills, as well as from their imagination.
