LEEDS-born Ian Richardson, who has died at the age of 56, combined a career as an accountant with that of a performer in a specialised field of music, which led him to master a number of highly unusual instruments.
As a founder member in 1977 of the York Waits, which recreated the city band of York as it was in the Tudor period, and of a Leeds-based early music group named Estampie, Mr Richardson performed throughout the UK, in many European countries and in th
e United
States.
He made ten recordings and several broadcasts on BBC TV and radio.
Born in Armley in 1951, Mr Richardson attended Leeds Central High School and the University of Leeds, where he graduated in mathematics.
Later he qualified as a chartered accountant and after working for several large companies in the north of England he became a partner in practices in Bury and later Batley.
He was also a former treasurer of the Chartered Institute of Taxation.
While at school, Mr Richardson and his elder brother Roger – also a member of the York Waits – began to play the recorder and joined a group which enjoyed success at music festivals in the 1960s.
The brothers then began to acquire reproductions of obsolete renaissance reed instruments such as the crumhorn, the rauschpfeiffe, the shawm and the curtal.
They helped form a group named the Ayre Consort and attended summer schools in Germany and England and became pioneers in the burgeoning early music movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Mr Richardson became well known as a particularly vivacious performer, especially on the recorder.
Ian Richardson died after suffering a succession of strokes.
He leaves his children Andrew and Amy, from his marriage, later dissolved, to Sue.
His funeral took place on August 14 at Rawdon Crematorium.
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