A Grand Celebration of Le Concert Spirituel 

Now in its 10th year, Instruments of Time and Truth, described on BBC Record Review as ‘an absolutely superb band of instrumental soloists’, was founded in 2014 by musicians Gabriel Amherst and Judith Evans to provide a platform for international performers resident in and around Oxford. 

Since its inception IT&T has performed frequently in the Sheldonian Theatre, the Holywell Music Room, SJE Arts, Dorchester Abbey, and many of Oxford’s churches and chapels. Locally, the orchestra has also performed as part of Garsington Opera at Wormsley, Longborough Festival Opera, the Divine Office Festival, and the Tetbury Festival. The ensemble has assumed a significant role in underpinning the tradition of choral excellence at the University of Oxford, collaborating with the choirs of Christ Church, Keble, Merton, New, Magdalen, The Queen’s, Somerville and St Peter’s Colleges, as well as with choirs from within the community: New College School, Frideswide Voices, the Oxford Bach Choir, Oxford Girls’ Choir, Oxford Pro Musica Singers, Schola Cantorum of Oxford, St Edward’s Singers, and the Summertown Choral Society. 

Instruments of Time and Truth has also extended its activities further afield, performing at London’s Kings Place and Wilton’s Music Hall, Leicester’s De Montfort Hall, Peterborough Cathedral, in Bath’s Assembly Rooms as part of the West Country Choral Festival, and at the Stour Festival in Kent. IT&T has also been in demand in Europe, performing in France, Spain, the Canary Islands, and as part of the Valetta Baroque Festival in Malta. 

IT&T has often worked alongside the Oxford University Music Faculty, coaching the student baroque ensemble, giving masterclasses and participating in conferences on historically informed performance as well as establishing an education programme which opens the doors of the University to local schoolchildren. In 2019, IT&T’s ground-breaking ‘InSpires’ education project was awarded the OMEP Music Partnership Cup at the Music Hub Gala Awards. The scheme has been highly praised for its innovative work in introducing school students to period instruments and performance practice, with an extensive programme of courses, coaching and individual tuition.

Edward Higginbottom is a classical award-winning conductor and organist from Oxford, UK. Formerly the conductor of New College Choir Oxford, he is now the principal conductor of Instruments of Time and Truth.

Before moving on to St Mary’s Church in Warwick, Edward was a chorister at his local parish church where he started playing the organ. Edward completed his undergraduate and graduate training as organ scholar of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he developed a particular interest in French baroque music and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists. He toured regularly in France at that time as director of the Cambridge University Purcell Society. As a graduate student, he spent time in France (1970-1972), studying the organ with Marie-Claire Alain while working on his doctoral thesis.

He was appointed as the Organist and Director of Music at New College, Oxford in 1976. While the main role of the choir is to provide liturgical music for worship, Edward went further, organizing economically viable choir tours and a broad set of musical recordings. By doing so, he “has helped the cause of such institutions through a period when financial constraints and changes in social attitudes have threatened choral foundations”.

In 1990 he was made an officer, and subsequently a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture for “his role in the revival of choir schools in France and support of French cultural activities”.

In 2010 he formed a new recording label for the Choir, novum, and the choir began experimenting with weekly webcasting of their Evensong services.

Retiring from New College in 2014, he continues his musical career as a freelancer. He is the principal conductor of an Oxford ensemble called Instruments of Time and Truth. In spite of his retirement, however, he was named in March 2019 as the Director of Chapel Music at St Peter’s College, Oxford for the 2019/20 academic year, pending the appointment of a successor to Jeremy Summerly in 2020.