The Caged Byrd 
The singers of Hexad grew up with the unique Oxbridge choral tradition and combine their collective experience with the top-tier British ensembles – such as The Sixteen, Tenebrae, and The Gesualdo Six – in a programme around Byrd’s Mass for Three Voices, a pearl of powerful polyphony. 400-year-old Byrd, a favourite of the First – very protestant! – Queen Elisabeth, had to be discrete about his Catholicism, but he found it increasingly difficult. He spent the last part of his life in isolation with a body of work written for ‘recusants’. The singers of Hexad also bring a six-part mass, which refers to a painful period of religious prosecution and a quest for inner strength.

HEXAD 
Anna Semple – mezzo soprano 
Daniel Gethin – counter tenor 
Gopal Kambo – tenor 
Jack Granby – tenor 
Simon Grant – baritone 
Piers Kennedy – bass