In this episode, we spoke to Dr Kerry McCarthy, a musician and author known for her work on early English music. Kerry has published articles in the journals The Musical Times and Early Music. She was given the Nicolas Slonimsky Award for Outstanding Musical Biography in 2014 for her book on Renaissance composer William Byrd, published by Oxford University Press.

We spoke to Kerry about her new book on Thomas Tallis published last year. In addition to speaking about her personal experience performing Renaissance polyphony, Kerry elaborated on her unique yet necessary approach to structuring the biography. She also shared some fascinating thoughts on what life was like in Tudor England.