Donna Lynn Musson is a Canadian composer and musician who draws from multiple influences and genres. At home on piano, keyboards, and slide guitar, her musical journey has taken her from the mining town of Sudbury, Ontario, where she was born and raised, to the indie music scene of Toronto and to the blues clubs of Austin, Texas.  Donna Lynn has composed and arranged music since she was a child. Self-taught on slide guitar, and studying classical piano through the Royal Conservatory of Music under Sydney Young McInnis (Toronto) and Burnetta Day Mould (Germany), she enjoys performing live and prefers to play solely by ear. Improvisation with like-minded musicians is a passion and a hallmark of her live performances.

​

During the 2000’s, Donna Lynn was a mainstay on the Austin Club scene playing Delta Blues style slide guitar both solo and with her own trio (under the name Donna Lynn Kay). In Austin, she recorded and released her debut album, Electric Blue, a critically acclaimed collection of live and studio acoustic and electric slide guitar and Delta-influenced blues. Returning to Canada, Donna Lynn took a hiatus from live performance to start a family. Now based in Hamilton, Ontario, she continues to compose and record solo and multi-instrumental works on the borderlands of classical and post-minimalism music.  With influences ranging from blues slide guitar masters like Blind Willie Johnson and Son House, to ambient pioneer Brian Eno, to minimalism composer Philip Glass, her work encompasses acoustic and resonator guitar, piano, keyboards, computer-based synthesizers, and digital sound sampling. 

​

A study in melodic, post minimalist piano, Sanctum is Donna Lynn’s most recent release. Recorded in her home studio in Hamilton, Ontario, during the Great Pandemic, Sanctum is a solo instrumental journey through a metaphorical night. A response to the collective experience of societal lockdown, Sanctum draws upon themes of isolation and reflection, revelation, and redemption. She describes Sanctum as “a kind of musical redemption for me in that I have returned to a purer and simpler approach to my music,” and that she hopes the album may “resonate with someone seeking to find that clarity in themselves.”