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About Lili Haydn

"…Lili Haydn’s score,...crescendoes when it should and occasionally rings triumphant."  - Variety 

"Bliss-inducing original music by composer Lili Haydn ...My response was the reviewer’s equivalent of a spiritual visitation." -L.A. Times

Rolling Stone called her music “fiery and virtuosic...”   George Clinton called her "the Jimi Hendrix of the violin."

GRAMMY winner Lili Haydn’s six critically acclaimed major label recordings as a solo artist have been NPR favorites, and her legendary collaborations include everyone from Herbie Hancock, Sting, Jimmy Page & Robert Plant, the LA Philharmonic, and George Clinton's  P-Funk All Stars to name a few. 

 

Lili’s film composing career started as part of Hans Zimmer’s team, a fellowship with the Sundance Institute, and has blossomed into 18 feature films/documentaries to her credit (including ANITA, The House That Jack Built, Sundance Selects’ DriverX). Lili contributed additional composition on Amazon’s hit series Transparent, won Best Music at the Milan International Film Festival, and is enjoying the recent releases of Oscar winner Freida Mock’s documentary RUTH: Justice Ginsburg in Her Own Words, Oscar nominee Michele Ohayon’s Netflix documentary Strip Down Rise Up, and the hit Netflix series Ginny & Georgia.

 

As the daughter of iconic feminist comedienne Lotus Weinstock, and a graduate of Brown University in political science, Lili is a life long activist, and believes music and stories have the power to heal and uplift…important now more than ever. 

Additional Press

Press Quotes

"The show opens and closes with sound direct from God through the amazing Lili Haydn. Her violin and her voice combined to utterly and totally mesmerize the audience. Her performance...was nothing short of pure magic."  - Examiner.com

"Bliss-inducing original music by violinist/vocalist/composer Lili Haydn...My response was the reviewer’s equivalent of a spiritual visitation."  -  L.A. Times

"Ms Haydn approaches and reaches the ecstatic, lifting the audience literally to heights seldom experienced."  -  On Stage Los Angeles

 "...the incredible violinist and singer Lili Haydn literally blew away the public and can understandably be called the Lady Hendrix of the violin."  -  Hollywoodtoday.net

 "Haydn has a voice so sublime that it is truly like the fifth string of her virtuoso violin."  -  Paper Magazine

 "A mix of neo-psychedelic flower child and rock star virtuoso...Heifetz meet Hendrix."  -  NPR

 "LiliLand is a playful, upbeat, moving, genre-transcending, mystical journey…for your Heart, Soul And Mind As Well As Your Ears”  - Huffington Post

"Courageously intimate with her audience, Haydn lays into her violin as if it's a wild animal only she can bring to heel.  The effect is an emotional magic show...a party of sound...electronica beat, lyrical strings, ethereal voice, and words that resonate in the battered chamber of the human soul."  -  L.A. Weekly

"Lili amazed her audience...tossing her raven curls like the rock star she is...her performance was electrifying."  -  Women Who Rock

Quotes about Lili’s latest CD, LiliLand from celebrated producers:

"Unique, creative, moving, bold, sonically beautiful and really fucking clever.... I love this record for its passion, craftsmanship, & honesty. I would go on this ride again & again & again..."  - Linda Perry (Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani)

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"Lili manages to mix Kate Bush with modern influences to make a beautifully unique sound based around her amazing violin skills and soulful voice."  -  Steve Lillywhite (U2, Dave Matthew’s Band, Muse)

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"I really like the spareness of it, and the content…the strong thread of mid-60's Haight-Ashbury aggression and looseness to it all, informed by beat making grooves  (with some classical influence). All the different feels, from Russian folk to Carnival to Flamenco to hiphop, and beyond. Your voice sounds really great...dark and rich. I also really like "This Is A Moment"...Great programming and movement. Love "I Am A Man", and the way it goes into a sort of funeral/gospel song. "Tyrant "was one of my faves, esp the line about not knowing the cost of freedom until you're free…great!"  -  David Kahne (Paul McCartney, Lana Del Rey)

More About My Brains And How I Got Them Back:

I've done a lot of talking about how I lost everything and got it back through music.  You can hear an entertaining version of this story in a TEDx talk I did called How Music Saved My Brain.

I want to explain with a little more factual detail, in case anyone reading this is curious, or wondering if they're affected...

I became chemically sensitive to a pesticide called Chlordane, which exists in 30 to 60 million homes in the US, pretty much any structure built between 1948-1988.  It was used to prevent termites, but they later found it to be carcinogenic.  It has no halflife and it is pervasive, found in 90% of breast milk.  It can cause a whole host of problems, and in my case, it caused me to be foggy headed, so foggy that I literally couldn't  think or follow instructions, or process information.  I once was in traffic and rear ended the car in front of me because I thought 'red' meant 'go.'  It's called "Toxic Inebriation."

Only about 1% of the population is chemically sensitive, but the human body can only sustain so much environmental toxicity before it can no longer handle even one molecule of a given toxin, and my immune system was battered by an earlier incident in which the generator that was powering my recording studio melted over the course of a year, and I was breathing melting wires and flame retardant, through the heating and AC vents in the house.

In the process of remediating the melting generator, we disturbed the foundation of the house, which had Chlordane in it, which became airborne, travelling through the vents and contaminating everything I owned.  I had to evacuate and get rid of everything, my grandma's grand piano, my pictures, because it couldn't be cleaned to a level that wouldn't make a "chemically sensitive person" sick.  

I had to figure out how to save my house, my sanctuary.  Once I figured out what it was, I found out that there is a very specific and costly protocol for fixing a house with Chlordane in it (not all houses are able to be fixed.  In more humid areas like the South, they used a lot more of it, and those houses can be too contaminated to fix).  It involved replacing the HVAC system, meticulously wiping down EVERY surface and crevice in the house in a specific method, and encapsulating the crawlspace with an impenetrable substance which prevents any other chemicals or mold or pests or you name it from entering the house.  I spent my savings doing all these things and more, in order to save the only possession I had left (besides my violins).  After doing all this, I hired the same toxicologist and Industrial Hygenist who discovered the Chlordane to test it for safety, and THANKFULLY all the tests came back fine!  I had saved the house.  

But I was still sick.  I wasn't myself.  Electroencephalograms (tests of the brain) confirmed what I was feeling, and indicated that my brain waves were abnormal and typical of someone who had been poisoned and had brain damage. Western medicine had absolutely no solutions.  A child of alternative medicine, I did a 6 month detox (The Purification Rundown), Neuro-feedback, Hyperbaric Oxygen therapy, and so many other healing modalities, and they helped, but only about 65%...I was still not fully there.  

I was really scared.  I remember one night in bed with my beloved Itai, crying because I thought I had lost myself.  I didn't even care about the possessions any more.  I couldn't write lyrics, and my concentration was shot.  I was fucking up at recording sessions and stopped getting hired by my main employers. I didn't know how I was going to live like that.  

And then I decided to start practicing my violin more rigorously, forcing myself to concentrate, and sight reading classical music again.  And literally every day I practiced, I would wake up the next day feeling more present and smart. I kept it up, and had a full recovery...a miracle.

I found out in the process of researching this for my TEDx talk that music literally causes neuro-genesis, activates the whole brain in a way that nothing else does, and is 65% more effective than any other form of neuro-therapy in tests of people affected by strokes.  Children who study music test as much as 30% higher in math and reading, and it is not an airy-fairy proposition to say that music is medicine.

If you have more questions about this, please feel free to write me.  Here is a link for the remediation of Chlordane, and I hope you take the time to make some music every day!

How to remove Chlordane:
http://www.chem-tox.com/chlordane/repair.html

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