You have to start small to prove it will work and attract sponsors and funding, he explains.
For the initial festival he is planning seven evening concerts, three lunchtime ones and possibly some workshops. Groups will come from Australia as well as from around New Zealand.
"Groups from Melbourne are fighting for places," he says with delight.
A former chairman of the London Handel Society, he says early music concerts are often performed in churches and he plans to do the same here.
St Paul's Cathedral Choir will be performing the Holy Saturday Responsaria by Carlo di Gesualdo on Saturday March 8, 2014 by candlelight. The Sunday service on March 2 will feature Guillaume de Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame (composed before 1365).
There will also be five lunchtime concerts - each 30 minutes long - in the cathedral featuring the best of early music for the organ, with a madrigal group and recorders, spinet and gamba.
Dunedin groups the Southern Consort of Voices and the Rare Byrds will join forces in a concert of Tudor Music for the opening event on Saturday March 1: The Tudors: Piety and Pleasure, with court dances.
There will also be groups from Auckland, Sydney and Melbourne (lute recital) and Dunedin soloists.
Early music is rhythmic with beautiful harmonies, Mr Clifford says. "It's very clear and the music, especially if it's performed well, bounces along in a very beautiful rhythm."
Early music ranges from medieval (before about 1400), to Renaissance (1400 to about 1600) and baroque (from about 1600 to 1750).
More information
For more information about the New Zealand International Early Music Festival, email difemnz2014@outlook.com.
