Anna Lewton-Brain, BA (Vind), MA (Dal), is a doctoral candidate in English Literature at McGill University and faculty member of Dawson College in Montreal. Her dissertation, entitled “Metaphysical Music: Donne, Herbert, Crashaw, and Seventeenth-Century Song” examines the intersections of music and the Metaphysical poets in Renaissance English literary culture. Her graduate studies have been supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) fellowship and the Early Modern Conversions Project. Anna has maintained a singing career in tandem with her academic pursuits, performing with the King’s College Chapel Choir, Symphony Nova Scotia Chorus, Montreal Symphony Orchestra Chorus, McGill Chamber Orchestra, in the Montreal Bach Festival, and with Musique Royale. Her literary and musical vocations intersect frequently: she has presented workshops and public exchanges on music and poetry at the Montreal Baroque Festival, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, CRASSH (the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities) at the University of Cambridge, and at the Guildhall School of Music in London. She is also a founding member and President of the Montreal-based early music ensemble One Equall Musick (oneequallmusick.org).
