In 1993 the late Sam Wanamaker asked Philip Pickett to form an associate ensemble to carry the name and ethos of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre around the world through concerts, recordings and broadcasts.

Determined to achieve the highest possible standards of musical performance, Pickett immediately formed the Musicians of the Globe from among the very best of England’s early music instrumentalists. Together with distinguished vocal soloists they explore a colourful and varied repertoire of Elizabethan and Jacobean music, much of it inspired by Shakespeare.

The nucleus of the group – a 6-part English consort of violin, recorder, cittern, lute, bandora and bass viol – can be expanded to perform large-scale programmes of 17th-century music, and the Musicians often collaborate with John Ballanger, director of Fools Paradise and England’s leading juggling jester.

Following their Purcell Room debut in 1994 the Musicians of the Globe were invited to make three live broadcasts for BBC Radio 3, to give a concert in the 1995 Purcell Room lunchtime series and to appear at the Seville, Aldeburgh and South Bank Centre Early Music Festivals.

In June 1997 they began a summer concert series at the Globe Theatre, and brass, wind and percussion players from the group provided the music for Richard Olivier’s production of Henry V.

Highlights of 1998/9 included four fully-staged performances of Blow’s opera Venus & Adonis at the Globe, A Restoration Tempest for the City of London Festival, and concerts in Belgium, Italy, Sicily, at the BBC Proms, London’s Purcell Room and Queen Elizabeth Hall, Rome’s Accademia Filarmonica and Barcelona’s Palau de la Musica.

More recently they have visited South America and Hungary, toured Japan twice, returned to Rome, Barcelona, Seville, Bruges, London’s South Bank Centre and the City of London Festival and appeared at the Antwerp, Turin, Ravenna, Sienna, Utrecht, Seville, Cheltenham, York, Chester, Neuss, Dubrovnik, Mexico City, San Luis Potosi, Carinthian Summer, Prague Spring and Almagro Theatre Festivals.