Born in Frankfurt, Marc Lewon is a specialist in medieval and Renaissance music and a widely recognised expert in the field of Early Music. He studied lute with Crawford Young, minoring in singing, and fiddle in postgraduate studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, graduating with honours. He had previously received a Magister Artium cum laude for his studies in musicology and Older German literature and language studies at the University of Heidelberg. In 2018, he received a Doctor of Philosophy in Music from the University of Oxford under Reinhard Strohm (dissertation available for download from the Oxford Research Archive). He combines musical talent and a passion for research, which he uses to develop new perspectives for performance practice.
As an internationally performing musician, Marc Lewon works with leading Early Music ensembles and soloists. These include Le miroir de musique (Baptiste Romain), per-sonat (Sabine Lutzenberger), Peregrina (Agnieszka Budzińska-Bennett), Les Flamboyants (Michael Form) and Dragma. He is artistic advisor for several festivals and has released numerous CDs and radio recordings as well as publications on Early Music.
With his own ensemble Leones, he is on a quest to discover previously unknown works from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Here, he sets new aesthetic accents with pioneering work and new interpretations in concerts and critically acclaimed CD recordings.
He is a key participant in the research project Musikleben des Spätmittelalters in der Region Österreich at the University of Vienna and in the E-LAUTE edition project at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, which is dedicated to the edition of all German lute tablatures as part of a WEAVE cooperation. He is co-founder and part of the management team of ReRenaissance Basel, which organises monthly concerts and a biennial festival for Renaissance music in the Barfüsserkirche Basel.
Marc Lewon became professor for medieval and early modern lute instruments at the Schola Cantorum on 1 September 2017 succeding Prof. Crawford Young.