About the band

The York Waits are one of the world’s longest-established renaissance music ensembles. The group has performed continuously since 1977, bringing sounds such as the shawm and sackbut band and the “great consort” of recorders - plus mixed ensembles that include voices and violins, crumhorns and curtals - to audiences throughout the UK and in several European countries.  

Naturally, there have been personnel changes - bringing in younger musicians with new skills, ideas and repertoire - but one founder member remains and others have performed with the Waits for more than 20 years. 

The group was formed by seven young men, based in York and Yorkshire, who developed a passion for the music of the medieval and renaissance periods and for its instruments, at a time when accurate reproductions were becoming more widely available. 

The new ensemble gave itself a powerful raison d’être by setting out to recreate the salaried city band of York, which existed from medieval times to the early 1800s. Many municipalities in England and continental Europe employed such ensembles, which had a range of civic duties, such as bringing music to the masses. For many years the newly-assembled York Waits performed in carefully-researched and recreated clothing of the renaissance period, and still clamber into costume for traditional processions and historical re-enactments. 

There have been ten recordings inspired by historical themes, including the Spanish Armada, the life and times of Richard III and Henry VIII - plus York’s most notorious native, Guy Fawkes. There has also been a sequence of recordings of early Christmas music. 

Recent concert programmes too have been constructed around such varied themes as pilgrimage and the Gunpowder Plot. Sometimes there are readings drawn from original sources, but the emphasis is always on the music of the chosen period and the instruments that were heard at the time, providing a vivid soundtrack to the past.

The main ensemble remains the band of shawms and sackbuts (loud reed instruments and the early trombone), plus quieter consorts such as recorders, crumhorns, harps and strings, but other sonorities include the popular instruments of medieval and renaissance times, such as bagpipes, hurdy gurdy, guitar, rebec and the pipe and tabor. For many years, too, a solo singer has been a core member of the Waits and this has enabled the repertoire to widen greatly.

The York Waits enjoy researching and developing new programmes but are also enthusiastic collaborators on projects that aim to bring the past and its music alive for new audiences.