Sir John Eliot Gardiner

Gardiner was educated at Bryanston School, and studied history and Arabic as an undergraduate at King's College, Cambridge. Gardiner began to learn conducting at the age of 15, later he toured the Middle East conducting the Oxford and Cambridge Singers. After graduating from King's College, Cambridge, he studied at King's College London under Thurston Dart, and with the French music professor Nadia Boulanger. During his time in Cambridge he founded, in 1964, his first musical ensemble, the Monteverdi Choir.