The Renaissance Players do folk and pop from Medieval times to the 1970s, in ‘British Birds, Beasts and Bards’.

The music of the ‘70s – that’s the 1270s to the 1970s – gets a unique makeover in the loving hands of Winsome Evans when the Renaissance Players, Australia’s longest-running early music group, return in March to its superb home: the Great Hall at Sydney University.

Seven centuries of folk pop will be blended in heavenly harmony as the redoubtable doyen of early music explained to Limelight when describing this latest musical adventure: ‘British Birds, Beasts and Bards’.

“We’ve dedicated these concerts to the memory of Pete Seeger, folk-music guru and Alan Turing, the Enigma Code hero,” Evans said.

“So, as you can imagine, it’s not only a crossover between mediaeval, renaissance and 1970s pop folk but there’s more than a little game-playing, musical riddling and general naughtiness!”

Bookended like a traditional British Proms concert, complete with organ accompaniment for Elgar’s Land Of Hope and Glory and Parry’s setting of Blake’s Jerusalem – with audience singing, of course! – the game-playing extends beyond the structure of the concert and its themes to the instrumental arrangements themselves.

The ‘birds’ of the title include ravens,...