[1] Founded in 1992 by director Belinda Sykes, their music spans a range of European, Middle Eastern and North African medieval and folk genres, drawing especially on Arabic, Sephardic and Andalusian traditions.
She fell in love with the oboe at the age of six, by mistake, while listening to the cor anglais solo in the New World Symphony.
[2] In 2004 Sykes was solo oboist playing Harrison Birtwistle's music in a production of Euripides' Bacchae at the Royal National Theatre.
[6] In 2011 Sykes was appointed professor of medieval song at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.
[2] In 2015 Sykes sang and acted in another production of Bakkhai, alongside Ben Wishaw at London's Almeida Theatre.