Teddy Tahu Rhodes

Teddy Tahu Rhodes (born 30 August 1966) is a New Zealand operatic baritone.

Rhodes was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 30 August 1966, to a British mother, Joyce, and a New Zealand father, Terrence Tahu Gravenor Rhodes. The Maori word "Tahu", which means "to set on fire", was added to the family name soon after they settled in New Zealand. His parents divorced when he was an infant, and he grew up with his mother. His aunt Margaret Rhodes, the wife of his paternal uncle Denys Rhodes, was a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. Crime novelist Ngaio Marsh was a friend of the family, and lived on and off with Rhodes' grandparents (Arthur) Tahu Rhodes and Helen "Nelly" Rhodes (nee Plunket) in Britain in the 1920s and 30s; in a 2011 documentary, Rhodes recalled "the magnificent Christmases that Marsh put on for her friends' children.

In his final year of secondary school, Christ's College, Christchurch, Rhodes was selected for the New Zealand Youth Choir, where his musical potential was first identified. Following a relatively short period of formal lessons, he was entered into the 1986 Dame Sister Mary Leo Scholarship competition, which he won. He pursued private studies while studying at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree, subsequently qualifying as an accountant. His teachers, at this time and later, included Mary Adams Taylor, Rudolf Piernay, and David Harper.