Shards

Shards

Shards’ Kieran Brunt has been singing William Byrd since his college chapel choir days, and, in a sense, had been unconsciously setting up to release ‘Byrd Song’. The London band’s new record pays tribute to the Renaissance composer through eight reimagined works by Shards. William Byrd’s devoid Catholicism in Protestant England made him a pariah whose work had to be performed secretly. Brunt says ‘there’s a real sense of every note and word of text having extreme significance’. His reverence for Byrd’s legacy carries on to the careful ways they tackle the composer’s music anew, over four centuries after his passing.

Photography by Alex Kozobolis

Venue: Jacobikerk

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