An expert on both lute and vielle, Germany's
Marc Lewon is one of the world's leading performers of German medieval music. He is also widely heard as a vocalist, often with his
Ensemble Leones, and he is an important educator and medieval music researcher.
Lewon was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1972. He attended high school there but also spent a year in Climax, Minnesota, as an exchange student.
Lewon attended Heidelberg University in Germany, taking courses in musicology and German studies, and graduating in 2002. He went on to the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland, studying lute with
Crawford Young, vielle with
Randall Cook, and medieval singing. He received a musicology Ph.D. in 2018 from Oxford University, where his mentor was Reinhard Strohm, and he has been involved in a large research project on musical life in Austria in the late Middle Ages.
Lewon has performed with a wide variety of early music groups, including
Le Miroir de Musique,
PER-SONAT,
Peregrina, and many others. In 2008, he founded
Ensemble Leones, which has performed widely.
Beginning with a stint teaching medieval music theory and ensemble playing at the Hochschule für Musik Leipzig in 2007-2008,
Lewon has taught and lectured widely. He has held positions at the University of Vienna (2013) and Heidelberg University (2015).
Lewon is also the co-founder of a two-year training program in medieval music held at the Burg Fürsteneck Academy. He became the professor of medieval and early modern lute instruments at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in September of 2017.
Lewon has issued six albums with
Ensemble Leones on the
Christophorus and Naxos labels. Several have been devoted to the prominent medieval Minnesinger
Oswald von Wolkenstein, including 2021's Oswald von Wolkenstein: Lieder. Yet, he has not restricted himself to German repertory, also issuing albums devoted to
Josquin,
Alexander Agricola, and the
Chansonnier Cordiforme. He has appeared on more than 50 albums released by various groups.