Lili Haydn is a Grammy Award-winning violinist, singer, composer, and actress. As a child, she pursued a career as an actress, at age eight she discovered the violin and began to focus on classical music. By the time Haydn was fifteen, she had played with the Los Angeles Philarmonic.

 

After graduating from Brown University with a B.A. in Political Science, she started composing original songs and became one of the most requested session violinists around Los Angeles. By the time she signed with Atlantic in 1997, she had embraced a variety of genres, having played with Quwaali musician, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Porno for Pyros, Tracy Chapman, the Jayhawks, Brandy, Tonyl Tonil Tonel, No Doubt, Tom Petty and more. In addition, she has played with, Sung With, and opened for Sting, Josh Groban, Herbie Hancock, Robert Plant & Jimmy Page, Matchbox 20, Seal, and George Clinton who calls her "The Jimi Hendrix of the violin". Her parents, actress/comedienne Lotus Weinstock and video artist David Jove, both now deceased, allowed her to choose her own first name. She reportedly chose the name "Helicopter" by which she was known briefly (citation needed).

 

As a child actress, Haydn may be best remembered as the young, smart, and sassy daughter, of Belinda Capuletti, from the 1983 Rodney Dangerfield movie Easy Money (2). She also appeared in the first Not Quite Human TV movie in 1987 and as a regular cast member on the syndicated The New Gidget.

 

Her debut album, Lili, was released in the fall of 1997 and was followed by Light Blue Sun in 2003 and Place Between Places in 2008, which she promoted with television and radio appearances such as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and NPR. She has a bit part in the Michael Keaton movie Jack Frost. She contributed to the score of the Edward Burns/Jennifer Aniston film, She's the One (1996) (3), as well as several films with Hans Zimmer, including Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Haydn won a fellowship to the Sundance Film Institute for film composing in 2009 and has composed the scores for three films, Jacklight, The Horse Bay (premiered at Sundance Film Festival and released in 2009 by Zeitgeist Films) and "The Lightmaker".

 

In 2008, Haydn accompanied Roger Waters at the Coachella Music Festival when they played "Dark Side of the Moon" (4) Haydn also performed on Cyndi Lauper's True Color Tour 2008. That same year she appeared on the cable TV series, Californication.

 

A social activist, Lili also performs regularly for various human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Operation USA, Human Rights Watch, and Human Rights Action Center, and her song "Unfolding Grace" appears on a CD compilation with U2 and Sting which benefits Aung San Suu Kui and the Bumeses prodemocracy movement.