The English countertenor came to Dunedin about three and a-half years ago to join his brother and family, and in search of a change.
Since then he has married and moved to a converted church at Seacliff, but this concert is his New Zealand debut, he says.
The countertenor voice is a high male singing voice - his is from the E below middle C and two octaves above, he says, but his speaking voice is at normal pitch.
There are two types of voice known as countertenor, he explains.
"My voice just continues upwards like a very high tenor. Really one can just say it's a little further squeezing of the vocal cords to get a higher note.
"Other countertenors, or so-called male altos, tend to be good basses and can use a sort of falsetto sound which is a different sound, and often their voices are much thinner but can be quite piercing. Mine tends to be quite full and round."
Clifford has been singing for more than 50 years. As a child he sang treble in church choirs in Hong Kong and Kenya, where his father was in the British army. Then he returned to the UK to study at the University of Kent.
"My parents and I thought chemistry was a nice safe thing to do at university but there was always an inkling in my mind - was it really what I want to do?" he says.
While a student, he auditioned in London as a tenor, but was told he should consider becoming a countertenor as he was able to sing high notes. It was the late 1960s and countertenors were coming back into fashion after 300 or more years.
"I thought that sounded interesting and began to explore it. I found the music of Henry Purcell and thought 'This is really amazing'."
He contacted Mark Deller, son of Alfred Deller, the first modern countertenor, found he lived nearby and took lessons with him. Then a year after graduating, he decided he had to try making a career in music, he says.
"I really wanted to do it passionately so I got a place at Trinity college with singing and harpsichord as second study. I was there about two years, got a singing diploma and was in a prestigious church choir, St Peter's Eaton Square, London. I got a good grounding in church music there. It specialised in baroque and 16th-century music."
During his career he worked not only in the UK but also in Europe, and recalls highlights, as chairman of the London Handel Society, taking a Handel opera to Halle in Germany, Handel's birthplace, and taking the choir of Westminster Abbey.
Although the countertenor voice had been around in medieval times, it reached its peak in the late 17th century with Henry Purcell (1659-1695), Clifford says.
"Purcell was very active in London at the time and really brought the countertenor voice into its fullness as such. Handel [1685-1759] employed it in his church music - hence the Utrecht Te Deum which we are doing. Then it tended to fall out a bit in the 1730s and '40s as the opera came in and castrati from Italy were favoured. But who wants to have that operation!" he says with a laugh.
Castratis high voices were preserved by castration before puberty. They were often forced by their parents, who wanted them to make money.
"Handel was famous in using the best castrati available. In modern times castrati have been replaced by countertenors. We are not as barbaric as we were then."
The countertenor voice was revived in the mid-20th century by Alfred Deller, but women also often sang the countertenor or castrati roles. Mezzo-soprano Dame Janet Baker was renowned for her performance as Julius Caesar in Handel's eponymous opera. In recent times, more music has been composed for the countertenor voice, such as Oberon in Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
In tomorrow's concert he is singing in George Frederick Handel's Utrecht Te Deum, written to celebrate the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 when the composer was in his late 20s, and which helped establish his reputation in London.
He also sings in Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Laetatus Sum (I was glad when they said unto me), also written when the French composer was in his late 20s, in 1671-2.
"Both are youthful works, but are both different in style. Handel is more serious and Charpentier more joyful. There are dotted rhythm which are a feature of Charpentier's music," he says.
The major work in the concert will be Bach's Magnificat, and it also includes Handel's Organ Concerto Op4 No 2.
Catch it
The Beauty of Baroque is at Knox Church, Dunedin at 7.30pm tomorrow.
David Burchell conducts the City of Dunedin Choir and the Southern Sinfonia, and besides Clifford, soloists are Pepe Becker (soprano), Grace Park (soprano), Amanda Cole (mezzo-soprano), Stephen Chambers, a former Dunedin tenor now forging a career overseas, and Julien van Mellaerts (bass).
