The Oxford Waits

The Oxford Waits take their name from a real-life band of city musicians, known as 'waits', who flourished in Oxford during the 17th century. The performers appear in period costume, and concerts are enlivened by street ballads, dance tunes, airs and rounds as well as readings from diarists and poets. Superb singing voices are matched by specialist skills in an array of instruments that include fiddle, bagpipes, lute, cittern, harpsichord, pipe and tabor, hurdy-gurdy, shawm, flute and percussion. A typical concert line-up consists of four or five performers, but the Oxford Waits are also represented by larger and smaller combinations of musicians, as well as by individual artists in solo recitals.