Professor Margaret Faultless

Margaret Faultless is an internationally renowned specialist in historical performance practice, both as a violinist and a director. Performing music from Monteverdi to the present day, she is now best known as an interpreter of eighteenth-century repertoire. 

Early in her career she specialised in contemporary music, and was first violin the ensemble Aquarius for several years, was co-leader of the West End musical Chess, assistant leader of the Scottish Ballet Orchestra and freelanced with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Academy of St Martin's in the Fields. However, a continuing interest in  eighteenth-century performance practice led her towards exploring the possibilities of performance on historical instruments. She became a principal player in Roger Norrington's London Classical Players, Andrew Parrot's Taverner Consort, and The Academy of Ancient Music with Christopher Hogwood, and was a member of the period instrument Gainsborough String Quartet.

Since 1989 Margaret has been a co-leader of The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, frequently directs the orchestra and plays a significant role in their education programme for young professionals. For over twelve years Margaret led the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra under Ton Koopman, notably participating in a ten-year project that saw the performance and recording of all of J.S. Bach’s Cantatas. She is a regular director of the European Union Baroque Orchestra (for whom she is Director of Studies), Philharmonie Merck, The National Orchestra of Portugal and the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra. Margaret has also appeared as a guest leader with the Handel & Haydn Society of Boston and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and in 2008 coached and led the Russian National Orchestra in Moscow with Vladimir Jurowski. She is the Artistic director of the ensemble Music for Awhile and was the founder and director of Devon Baroque for twelve years. A passionate chamber musician, she was a member of the London Haydn Quartet for ten years and regularly performs in a duo with pianist Adrian Partington, focusing on the sonatas of Beethoven and Brahms.  

Margaret is in demand as a lecturer on performance practice and her own particular research interests are distributed leadership in eighteenth-century repertoire and the performers' relationship with notation. A graduate of Clare College, she is Director of Performance at the Faculty of Music, offering support and advice to all students interested in performance,  and she is also Bye-Fellow of Girton College, and Musician in Residence at St John's College. An Honorary Fellow of Birmingham Conservatoire and and both an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music and Head of their Historical Performance Department, she became a Professor of the University of London in 2018 in recognition of her contributions to the profession, to education and research.