BARITONE Tim Scott Whiteley returns to his home city with the international a cappella group Cinquecento on Saturday to perform at the 2017 York Early Music Festival.

Born in 1980 in York, the son of esteemed York Minster organist John Scott Whiteley, Tim will be singing a 7.30pm programme entitled Musica Invictissima, Harmonies For A Habsburg Dynasty, in the Chapter House of York Minster with Swiss-born countertenor Terry Wey, German tenor Achim Schulz, Belgian tenor Tore Tom Denys and Austrian bass Ulfried Saber.

"We've been together since 2004, when I was teaching in Vienna at the time, and we've been the resident ensemble at the church of Saint Rochus and Sebastian in Vienna's 3rd District since 2005," says Tim. "That was great for us at the beginning because it meant we were singing together every Sunday, when we were quite young and our careers still hadn't quite taken off at that point, so that allowed us to get that familiarity with each other's voices."

Cinquecento is a truly democratic ensemble, so much so that Tim felt the need to say: "I'd like to point out that we have no director; no-one is in charge. We all have roles that we have assumed, with two of us concentrating more on the musicology and one of us is good at organising all the travel."

Tim was a chorister at York Minster from 1989 to 1994, serving as head chorister in his last year and later read German and linguistics at Christ Church, Oxford, when he spent the third year of his four-year degree in Vienna. "I completely fell in love with the city," he says.

"It was the lifestyle. Comparing the lifestyle and cost of living in Vienna and London, I was willing to forego all the choral work I could have done in London, thinking I would rather prefer to give Vienna a try."

Vienna still wins out, but this weekend finds Tim and Cinquecento in York performing works by Jacobus Vaet to mark the 450th anniversary of his death.

"Talking with John Bryan, one of the festival's artistic advisors, we've been trying for a number of years to make our work meld with the theme of that year, and this year we've at last been able to do that," he says.

Should you be wondering why Cinquecento are so named, Tim reveals: "It's like the model of the Fiat but that has nothing to do with it! It was the one name that we all agreed in the group wasn't terrible as it's fitting that Cinquecento refers to the 1500s, concentrating as we do on 16th century repertoire."

Cinquecento present Musica Invictissima, Harmonies For A Habsburg Dynasty, at Chapter House, York Minster, Saturday, 7.30pm. York Early Music Festival runs from tomorrow until July 15; for tickets and full programme, see ncem.co.uk/yemf. Box office: 01904 658338.