The Bate Collective

The Bate Collective, founded in 2022, is the Faculty of Music’s ensemble specialising in historically informed performance. Growing out of the student-formed Bate Players, the group uses period instruments, many of them from the University’s famous Bate Collection. Directed by Dr Jonathan Williams, the ensemble explores music from the Baroque period including vocal, instrumental, and operatic repertoire from Cesis and Cozzolani to Graupner, Heinichen, Bach, and Rameau. The Collective performs regularly at the Keble Early Music Festival and has also performed alongside Instruments of Time and Truth and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in side-by-side projects.