Rare Byrds

The RareByrds are a Dunedin-based early music consort specialising in Renaissance and early Baroque music. The group formed in 2009 and since then has performed in a wide range of settings and events, including house concerts, school programmes, puppet shows, fire performances, and weddings. The RareByrds provided music for the award-winning 2012 Dunedin Fringe Festival show SEX*DEATH*MAGIC: Renaissance Poetry Unbound. They first performed Mary, Queen of Scots, an original chamber opera, in the Dunedin Celtic Arts Festival 2013, touring to Invercargill in 2014. In 2015, the group performed Queen Catherine’s Masque in the NZ International Early Music Festival, and travelled to Australia to perform at the Abbey Medieval Festival outside Brisbane. Their site-specific puppet show Bookworm! won an award for Outstanding Innovation at the 2016 Dunedin Theatre Awards. They were also delighted to take part in the inaugural Wanaka Medieval Festival in 2016, returning in 2018.

The group currently includes players of the spinet, recorders, viols, and nyckelharpa, as well as solo singers and a chorus. They firmly believe in the power of music to combat the plague.