Violinist Margaret Faultless performs music from Monteverdi to the present day in a career that has included leading the contemporary music ensemble Aquarius, co-leading a West End Musical and The Scottish Ballet orchestra, and performing with ensembles such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Academy of St Martin’s in the Fields. She has guest-led the Russian National Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra (London) and the Handel and Haydn Society (Boston). Now best known as a specialist in historical performance practice, she has held principal positions and performed with many of the best-known period instrument ensembles.

Margaret led the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra (Ton Koopman) in their ten-year Bach cantata project, performing and recording every cantata. She was a member of The London Haydn Quartet, whose CD of Opus 9 was hailed as ‘one of the great Haydn quartet recordings’. She is the Artistic Director of Music for Awhile, an ensemble she founded in 1996 which is collaborating with Bettina Varwig in ground-breaking research centred on Bach’s St John Passion, entitled Music in the Flesh. She lectures and broadcasts on performance, her research interests including leadership and social interactions in Haydn symphonies and Bach’s notation for performers.

As a leader of The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment she performs at the Proms, the South Bank, Glyndebourne and has toured all over the world, working with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Mark Elder, Sir Roger Norrington, Ivan Fischer, John Butt and Maxim Emelyanychev. She directs the OAE Experience Scheme for young professionals – an exceptional education initiative that brings together early career period instrument specialist musicians from all over Europe. She directed and helped to devise the acclaimed Breaking Bach project, a collaboration with breakdancers performing at the Edinburgh Festival in 2025.

A graduate and Honorary Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, Musician in Residence at St John’s College and bye-fellow at Girton, she is the Artistic Director of the Cambridge University Collegium Musicum and of the University chamber music scheme (IAS), and works closely with the CMP. After 15 years Margaret will leave the post of Director of Performance at the Faculty of Music, a multi-faceted role which she helped to develop.

She is the first Becket Chair of Historical Performance at The Royal Academy of Music, a Professor of the University of London and an Honorary Fellow of Birmingham Conservatoire, the city in which she grew up.

Steven Devine combines a career as a conductor and director of orchestral, choral and opera repertoire with that of a solo harpsichordist and fortepianist. He is Conductor and Artistic Advisor of The English Haydn Festival; Music Director of New Chamber Opera, Oxford and Director of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s “Bach the Universe & Everything” series.

On the concert platform he has directed Purcell, Blow, Bach, Handel and Mozart with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; Bach Easter Oratorio with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales;  Haydn, Handel, CPE Bach, JC Bach, Dittersdorf and Viotti with the English Haydn Orchestra; Handel, Vivaldi and Porpora with Ann Hallenberg and Trondheim Barokk;  Bach Christmas Oratorio with the Norwegian Wind Ensemble; Handel Solomon with Victoria Baroque Players, British Columbia and Handel Music for the Royal Fireworks  with Arion Baroque Ensemble, Montreal; He has also directed programmes with the Academy of Ancient Music, Academie d’Ambronay, the Mozart Festival Orchestra and St Paul’s Chamber Orchestra,

Devine’s opera repertoire includes works by Purcell, Cavalli, Handel, Haydn and Mozart as well as rarities by Galuppi, Salieri and Cimarosa. His recordings include Dido & Aeneas with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Sarah Connolly in the title role.

As a keyboard player, he is the Principal Keyboard Player with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and also the principal keyboard player for The Gonzaga Band, The Mozartists and performs regularly with many other groups around Europe. He has recorded over thirty discs with other artists and ensembles and made many solo recordings. His recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations (Chandos Records) has received critical acclaim – including Gramophone magazine describing it as “among the best”. The complete harpsichord works of Rameau (Resonus) has received five-star reviews from BBC Music Magazine. Steven has recently released  Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (“it’s the one of all I’ve heard in the past ten years that I am happiest to live with.” Early Music Review).  He is currently engaged in recording the complete harpsichord works of Johann Ludwig Krebs, Bach’s favourite student.

Steven Devine was educated at Chetham’s School of Music before reading Music at St Peter’s College, Oxford. He was Director of Opera Restor’d from 2002-2010 and Kurator and Conductor of the Norwegian Wind Ensemble from 2016-2018.