Margaret Faultless
Margaret Faultless is an internationally renowned violinist - a specialist in historical performance practice and in great demand, particularly as a concertmaster and director.
Since 1989 she has been a leader of The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, working with Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Roger Norrington, Ivan Fischer, Mark Elder and Vladimir Jurowski in diverse repertoire at major venues such as the Queen Elizabeth Hall London, Glyndebourne, the Salzburg Festival and in New York. She directed the Orchestra on their first trip to Mexico, a series of Italian baroque programmes and at the gala re-opening of The Royal Festival Hall. For a year she was programme consultant for OAE.
Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra
For over twelve years Margaret led the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra under Ton Koopman, recording all the Bach cantatas, including every obligato for violin, violin piccolo and viola d’amore. She made her BBC Proms debut as soloist with the ABO in 1997. She was also a soloist on their first CD with Yo Yo Ma, and a disc of Locatelli.
In 1996, with her husband Simon Whistler, they founded the ensemble “Music for Awhile” and Margaret has directed the group in many programmes including English baroque opera, sequences of poetry with music and they have pioneered material from the British Library. They have recorded with flautist Wilbert Hazelzet and harpsichordist Matthew Halls. For three years a sponsorship initiative has enabled the ensemble to perform in churches all over England. The 2007 season included a series of chamber concerts at Conock Manor, the 12th Summer Festival at Alton Priors and performances in the Devizes Festival, Chirton, Nymet Rowland and Cardiff.
London Haydn Quartet
Margaret has been a member of The London Haydn Quartet for six years and their recently released volumes of Haydn Opus 9 Quartets has been hailed as one of the greatest Haydn quartet recordings ever. She also has a duo with pianist Adrian Partington with whom she is performing, in particular, the sonatas of Beethoven and Brahms.
In 2007 she directed the Britten Pears Baroque Orchestra in a joint project with the OAE and Freiburg Baroque and has directed the European Union Baroque Orchestra, Philharmonie Merck and The Harmony of Nations in major European tours.
She has guest led the Handel & Haydn Society of Boston and in 2008 led the Russian National Orchestra in Moscow at the invitation of Vladimir Jurowski.
Education
Herself a graduate of Cambridge University she has been asked to become an Artistic Director of the Cambridge University Colleguim Musicum, she lectures on performance practice, is the Director of Studies of the European Union Baroque Orchestra and is a frequent guest teacher and director at many leading conservatoires.
She has been made a member of the Music Faculty of Cambridge University and has been offered a Visiting Fellowship at Girton College, Cambridge which she will take up in 2010.
In addition to her career as a musician she also produced, edited, researched and marketed her late husband’s book On a Glass Lightly. This substantial work is not only a record of Simon Whistler’s finest glass engraving but also an account of his relationship with his father Laurence and uncle Rex Whistler. The book is now in it’s second edition.