Members

The Committee

Principal Conductor and Chair

Edward Higginbottom

Edward Higginbottom was Organist, Fellow and Tutor in Music at New College, Oxford, from 1976, where he directed a choir increasingly recognised as one of the country’s leading choral ensembles. Under his direction it made or appeared on some 120 recordings and toured from Brazil to Japan and Australia.

A specialist in French Baroque music, he helped to create the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles and was made Commandeur de l’ordre des arts et des lettres in 2003. He holds the Gold Medal of the Royal College of Organists and is an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music. In 2008 the University of Oxford made him its first Professor of Choral Music, and in 2023 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Worshipful Company of Musicians. He is Principal Conductor of Instruments of Time & Truth and founded the Oxford Consort of Voices in 2014.

Conductor, harpsichord and vocal coach

Christopher Bucknall

Christopher Bucknall is a conductor, harpsichordist and vocal coach who specialises in the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He studied music at Lincoln College, Oxford, and harpsichord and conducting at the Royal Academy of Music, which has made him an Associate. In the opera house he has conducted Handel’s Alcina for Den Norske Opera, Agrippina, Partenope and Jephtha for Iford Arts, and Cavalli’s La Calisto and Cesti’s L’Orontea at Theater Aachen. On the concert platform he has directed The English Concert and B’Rock as well as IT&T, and he has assisted Ivor Bolton, William Christie and Laurence Cummings. He lives in Oxfordshire and is a visiting coach at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Violin, leader

Bojan Cicic

Bojan Cicic is leader of the Academy of Ancient Music and of Florilegium, and is regularly invited to lead orchestras including the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Concerto Copenhagen and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He has appeared as director and soloist with the Academy of Ancient Music, the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and the Washington Bach Consort, in repertoire from the late sixteenth century to the violin concertos of Mendelssohn and Beethoven. With his own Illyria Consort he explores rare music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; its recordings include Carbonelli’s Sonate da camera, a Presto Recording of the Year in 2017, and Adriatic Voyage, which won the same award in 2021. His recording of Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins with Rachel Podger was named the best available by BBC Music Magazine. He has been Professor of Baroque Violin at the Royal College of Music since 2016, and leads Instruments of Time & Truth.

Viola

Rachel Byrt

Rachel Byrt studied viola at the Guildhall School of Music with Amanda Stirling, and later specialised in baroque and classical performance with Michaela Comberti. A member of the Gabrieli Consort and Players since 1992, she was principal viola of the Avison Ensemble for more than eight years, plays regularly as principal with the Academy of Ancient Music and is a long-standing guest of the Purcell Quartet. She is also a member of Britten Sinfonia. Her recordings include Bach’s St Matthew Passion for Deutsche Grammophon Archiv and Handel’s Messiah, and she has broadcast as a viola d’amore soloist with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. She is a trustee of IT&T.

Violin

Jean Paterson

Jean Paterson is a violinist with Instruments of Time & Truth and plays regularly in the orchestra’s concerts and chamber programmes, including the Summer Concert Series at Christ Church Cathedral.

Principal flute and orchestra fixer

Jonathan Slade

Jonathan Slade is a flautist, baroque flautist, teacher and composer based in Oxfordshire. He has played with The English Concert, Les Arts Florissants, the London Handel Orchestra and Arcangelo, including at the BBC Proms, and on the Boston Early Music Festival’s GRAMMY-winning recording of Telemann’s Ino. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, the Yale School of Music and The Juilliard School, and his compositions for flute have won a National Flute Association award. As IT&T’s principal flute and fixer, he engages the players for each of our concerts; musicians who would like to join our fixing list can write to him.

Marketing, Education and Outreach Manager

Elizabeth Nurse

Elizabeth Nurse leads IT&T’s marketing and our education and outreach work, including our partnership with Oxfordshire County Music Service and our programmes for young and early-career musicians. Find out more about our education work.

The musicians who shape our programme