While an undergraduate at Cambridge, John Eliot Gardiner launched his career as a conductor with a performance of Vespro della Beata Vergine by Monteverdi, in 1964, which led to the foundation of the Monteverdi Choir. In 1968 he founded the Monteverdi Orchestra. Having changed from modern instruments to period instruments in 1977, the orchestra changed it's name to the English Baroque Soloists in 1978. Gardiner is one of the leading conductors of the historically informed movement.