ORCHESTRA OF THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

Registered charity 295329 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · Wikidata: Q2028664 · Wikipedia

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is a world renowned orchestra which plays on original instruments. Being run and artistically led by its players, it works with leading artists as well as nurturing the next generation of musicians. The OAE strives to reach the widest audience possible through performance, its school residency and established education programmes.

Objects

TO ADVANCE EDUCATION THROUGH THE PROMOTION, SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT OF THE ART OF MUSIC (INCLUDING OPERA, MUSIC, DRAMA, SINGING AND ALL FORMS CONSISTING IN WHOLE OR PART OF MUSIC) AND IN PARTICULAR THE PROMOTION, ENCOURAGEMENT AND APPRECIATION OF MUSIC AS PLAYED ON PERIOD INSTRUMENTS

Area of benefit: ANYWHERE IN WORLD

The charity’s charitable objects and area of benefit, quoted from its governing document as held on the Charity Commission register.

Causes: Education/training · Arts/culture/heritage/science · website · Get email alerts

Registered contact address: Camden, London, England (from the postcode on the register)

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that the charity reported a net decrease in funds of £223,596 for the year, driven by increased charitable activity and late donor income. The Trustees maintain that the organization remains financially resilient, holding free reserves of £801,074 which exceed the stated policy target of £660,000. Despite the deficit, the Trustees and auditors confirm the charity is a going concern with adequate resources to continue operations for at least one year.

Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by Crowe UK LLP. Discloses 5 of 6 completeness components.

Policies the charity declares

In its annual return the charity told the Commission that it has the policies listed below. This is self-declared: it is not verified by the Commission or by this site, and it is not evidence of how a policy works in practice.

• Bullying and harassment policy and procedures
• Complaints handling
• Complaints policy and procedures
• Conflicting interests
• Financial reserves policy and procedures
• Internal charity financial controls policy and procedures
• Internal risk management policy and procedures
• Paying staff
• Risk management
• Safeguarding policy and procedures
• Safeguarding vulnerable beneficiaries
• Serious incident reporting policy and procedures
• Social media policy and procedures
• Trustee conflicts of interest policy and procedures
• Trustee expenses policy and procedures

From the charity’s annual return (Part A, self-declared)

Answers and figures the charity gave in Part A of its annual return to the Charity Commission. They are self-declared: not verified by the Commission or by this site. Only positive answers and figures are listed; items not listed are simply not shown.

Source: this charity’s annual returns on the Charity Commission register.

Annual return filing dates (Charity Commission record)

Of its last 5 annual returns with a recorded received date, 1 was received after the due date: year ending 30/09/2023 (received 31/07/2024, 1 day after the 30/07/2024 due date).

Due and received dates as recorded in the Commission’s annual-return data; the data does not say whether an extension was agreed. Source: this charity’s annual returns on the Charity Commission register.

Public fundraising profile: JustGiving — OAE (matched by registered charity number).

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Imogen Charlton-Edwards — Chair (source)
• Crispin Woodhead — Chief Executive Officer (source)
• Edward Shaw — Chief Operating Officer (source)
• Jo Perry — Business Development Director (source)
• Harry Hickmore — Development Director (source)
• Cherry Forbes — Education Director (source)
• Mary Price — Director of Finance (source)
• Catherine Sullivan — Director of Finance (source)

Listed on the charity’s own website when we last crawled it; roles may have changed. Pay-band disclosures above are anonymous statutory disclosures and are not attributed to any named individual.

Property (HM Land Registry)

1 registered title in England and Wales held by the charity’s company or corporate body (0 freehold). All charity-held property. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright, OGL v3.0.

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook · instagram

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 30/09/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~2.3 months of spending — below the median for charities its size (median 4.7 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Charitable activities (51% of income) — components as reported reconcile to the return’s total income; not from the accounts narrative.

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 11.3% of total income — above the median for charities its size (5.3%) (benchmarks).

Trustees · trustee networks

• ADRIAN CHARLES FROST · trustee of 3 other charities
• ALISON MCFADYEN · trustee of 1 other charity
• Alexandra Bellamy
• Alice Bronwyn Claire Evans
• Christine Sticher
• Crispin Peter Woodhead
• Daniel Alexander KC
• Dr Daniel Edgar
• Dr Susan Mary Tranter
• Eleanor Patricia Williamson
• Emma-Jane Azkoul
• IMOGEN PATRICIA CHARLTON-EDWARDS · trustee of 1 other charity
• Katherine Ann Spencer · trustee of 1 other charity
• LORD CHRIS SMITH
• ROGER MOUNTFORD

Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).

Operates in: Belgium · Czech Republic · Denmark · France · Germany · Hungary · Italy · Malta · Netherlands · Norway · Poland · Spain

Income and spending

Common questions

Shared trustees with funders

Register facts shown side by side: a person serves as trustee of both this charity and a funder whose accounts record grants to it. Shared trusteeship is lawful and common; well-run charities manage it through declared-interest procedures.

• ADRIAN CHARLES FROST — trustee here and at THE BRITFORD BRIDGE TRUST

Known funders

Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.

Grants marked “Unverified read” were flagged by automated checks as possibly misread from the funder’s filed accounts. They are listed, but left out of the totals, counts and funder relationships this site computes.

Government & lottery funding

Grants to this charity published as open data by government and lottery funders (360Giving).

Funders of similar charities

Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.

Charities like this

Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with THE ORCHESTRA OF THE CITY.

• THE ORCHESTRA OF THE CITY income £28k
• LONDON CONTEMPORARY ORCHESTRA income £1.5m
• LONDON CITY ORCHESTRA income £47k
• ENSEMBLE ORQUESTA income £68k
• THE PEOPLE'S ORCHESTRA income £840k
• ORION SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA income £134k

Side by side with its peers

Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.