Brynn Elliott

Brynn’s life has always been set to music. Her grandfather taught her how to sing when she was three years old and although she doesn’t remember that moment, images of her grandparents singing the swinging love songs of the 1950s remain immovable in her mind.

From a young age, she was captivated by art and music; taking part in local musicals for children and playing the young Cosette of Les Miserables in the private stage of her bedroom. In late 2010, to get away from the stress of high school, Brynn decided to pick up her dad’s old guitar. With the aid of YouTube, she learned how to play the guitar and eventually taught herself to play piano. Although at the time she loved to write stories and essays, she never considered writing music.

It wasn’t until 2012, after the death of a loved one, that Brynn found her voice and rhythm as a songwriter. In the midst of sorrow, she found she needed a catalyst for understanding, a way to honor and mourn her dear friend. She locked herself in her bathroom and began to pick away at her guitar. Oddly, it was not a sad melody she composed but a joyful one, and her compulsion for songwriting was born. Throughout the rest of that year, Brynn continued to sneak into the bathroom, where no one could hear her, and write music.

During the following summer, Brynn played a cover of Brooke Fraser’s song “Flags” for Harvard Summer School’s student talent show. It was then, when she saw the receptive response to her gift from several hundred of her peers, that she realized that writing and playing music was central to her calling.

After Brynn recorded a few of her songs in Atlanta, a family friend sent them to Clif Magness, a music producer who has worked with Quincy Jones, Wilson Philips, Avril Lavigne, and Kelly Clarkson. Two weeks before heading off to college, Brynn was invited by Magness to spend a year in Portland, Oregon writing and recording with him. She decided to postpone her education to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Thus, the EP and soon to be released album “Notions of Love” started to take shape.

In the fall of 2014, Brynn will attend Harvard College as a member of the class of 2018 and will be concentrating in Philosophy and Literature.

When asked how she will continue her music career while attending college she replies, “For me, school and my music are inseparable. They are the two sides of the same coin. The majority of the songs on “Notions of Love” were written in the throes of an intense high school career. The academic environment pushes me to think about my art. What do I want to say to the world I am studying? That question is what drives me to write. And it’s why I feel the combination of arts and academics is powerful and beautiful.”

Brynn believes art should no longer be viewed as a side dish of western culture, but as an entrée, the way medicine, technology, law, and business are.