Maud Karpeles

Maud Pauline Karpeles was born at Lancaster Gate in Bayswater, London, in 1885. She was the third of five children. Her father, Joseph Nicolaus Karpeles, was a German immigrant who was born in Hamburg, and naturalised as a British subject in 1881. == Volunteer work ==

After returning to England, Karpeles was a volunteer with the Invalid Children's Aid Association. According to founder Grace Kimmins, songs and dances from "Merrie England" would help to counteract the negative influences of urbanisation. Around this time, Maud Karpeles also became a member of the Fabian Society. There, they met Cecil Sharp, who was an adjudicator at the competition, Starting in September, they audited Sharp's classes at the School of Morris Dancing in the Chelsea Polytechnic Institute. == Collaboration with Sharp ==

English Folk Dance Society In 1910, the Karpeles sisters formed an informal Folk Dance Club, together with a group of girls who had been practicing every week at their parents' house. Initially, she wrote his letters in longhand, but quickly learned typewriting and shorthand. In the summer of 1915, Maud Karpeles accompanied him to the United States for the first time. She was one of three British teachers assisting Sharp at a summer school he was directing in Maine. == Fieldwork in Newfoundland ==

Sharp died in 1924, but just beforehand, he had expressed a wish to search for songs in Newfoundland. His theory predicted that the emigrants from Scotland and England would have brought folk songs with them, and that they would still be found there, if anyone cared to look. From 1929 to 1930, Karpeles finally took up the challenge, and spent around 14 weeks collecting songs. In 1934, she published her collection Folk Songs from Newfoundland. ==Later life==

The English Folk Dance Society (EFDS) merged with the Folk Song Society (FSS) in 1932 to become the "English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS). The EFDSS elected Karpeles to its Board of Artistic Control in 1932, together with Douglas Kennedy and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Kennedy would later credit Karpeles for ensuring the EFDSS would survive during this time. She continued to edit Sharp's manuscripts and was an energetic organiser of international festivals. Karpeles organised the International Folk Dance Festival and Conference in London in 1935. The event was a success and helped to raise Karpeles's profile internationally. In 1936, she traveled to Yugoslavia to watch dances; the team had been unable to attend the festival the year prior due to costs. In 1950, and again in 1955, she returned to the Appalachian Mountains (aged 65 and 70). This time she travelled with a heavy reel-to-reel recording machine, and recorded singers for the BBC. Some of the people she met remembered meeting Sharp the first time around. Once the folk singer Phil Tanner was discovered in Gower, Wales, Karpeles made sure that he was recorded. Work with refugees During the Second World War, Karpeles helped refugee musicians and with the Red Cross. In 1962 refugees from Tristan Da Cunha arrived in Britain. Karpeles visited them and recorded their dances. Publications Cecil Sharp's "English Folk Song: Some Conclusions" was considered to be a classic on the subject and Karpeles added material to the second, third and fourth editions. She never wavered from the original idea of the essential purity of folk song, free from commercialisation or vulgarity. In 1967 she published "Cecil Sharp: His Life and Work". In 1974 she published two substantial volumes: "Cecil Sharp's Collection of English Folk Songs Vol 1 & 2". "The Crystal Spring" (1975) is shorter version of the collection. Honours Karpeles was awarded the OBE in 1961, for services to folk music. She received two honorary degrees: one from Université Laval in Quebec (1961) and one from the Memorial University of Newfoundland (1970). ==Death and legacy==

Maud Karpeles died in 1976. In 2000, the English Folk Dance and Song Society issued as set of 55 trading cards with a "flicker book" celebrating the heroes of the folk-song revival. The flicker book shows a Morris dance being performed by Cecil Sharp, Maud and Helen Karpeles. This Kinora Spool can also be seen on the DVD "Here's a Health to the Barley Mow: A Century of Folk Customs and Ancient Rural Games" released by the British Film Institute and the EFDSS in 2011, and on YouTube. The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library in Cecil Sharp House has her unpublished papers and diaries. == Bibliography ==