33 Facts About Maud Karpeles

Maud Karpeles OBE, was a British collector of folksongs and dance teacher.

Maud Pauline Karpeles was born at Lancaster Gate in Bayswater, London, in 1885.

Maud Karpeles's father, Joseph Nicolaus Karpeles, was a German immigrant who was born in Hamburg, and naturalised as a British subject in 1881.

Maud Karpeles's mother, Emily Karpeles, was born in London.

Maud Karpeles's family moved to Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, when she was about ten.

Once a week, Maud Karpeles volunteered at the Mansfield House Guild of Play in Canning Town.

Around this time, Maud Karpeles became a member of the Fabian Society.

The Maud Karpeles sisters were "instantly entranced" by the style of folk dancing they saw at the festival.

In 1910, the Maud Karpeles sisters formed an informal Folk Dance Club, together with a group of girls who had been practicing every week at their parents' house.

Maud and Helen Karpeles were soon teaching Morris, sword, and country dancing classes five hours a day as members of his teaching staff.

In 1913, Maud Karpeles started working for Sharp as his amanuensis, after he developed neuritis in his right elbow.

In May 1914, Maud Karpeles was involved in Harley Granville-Barker's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Savoy Theatre, which featured folk music and dancing.

Sharp arranged the music and choreography, while Maud Karpeles trained the dancers.

Maud Karpeles lived with the Sharp family when they moved to Hampstead in 1915, not long after his wife, Constance Sharp, suffered a life-changing illness.

Maud Karpeles would continue to work closely with him until his death in 1924.

Maud Karpeles was one of three British teachers assisting Sharp at a summer school he was directing in Maine.

Between 1916 and 1918, Maud Karpeles assisted Sharp in collecting Anglo-American songs in the Southern Appalachian Mountains.

At first, Sharp and Karpeles were accompanied by John C Campbell, who introduced them to numerous key contacts and singers, including Edith Fish, a teacher at a Presbyterian mission school, who was a song collector herself.

Sharp continued to suffer from asthma, bronchitis, and fevers, and relied increasingly on Maud Karpeles to get through his many engagements.

In May 1924, Maud Karpeles traveled with Sharp through Torquay, Sheffield, Cardiff, Newport, Bath, Birmingham, Lincoln, Norwich, and Ilkley.

Sharp was en route to Newcastle to adjudicate a three-day competition, when he became so ill that Maud Karpeles had to take his place.

Maud Karpeles became Sharp's literary executor after his death, and fought legal battles on behalf of his estate, concerning the legacy of his collections.

Maud Karpeles later came into conflict with the EFDSS over the issue of copyright.

Maud Karpeles's 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, Maud Karpeles finally took up the challenge, and spent around 14 weeks collecting songs.

Kennedy would later credit Maud Karpeles for ensuring the EFDSS would survive during this time.

Maud Karpeles continued to edit Sharp's manuscripts and was an energetic organiser of international festivals.

Maud Karpeles organised the International Folk Dance Festival and Conference in London in 1935.

Once the folk singer Phil Tanner was discovered in Gower, Wales, Maud Karpeles made sure that he was recorded.

Cecil Sharp's "English Folk Song: Some Conclusions" was considered to be a classic on the subject and Maud Karpeles added material to the second, third and fourth editions.

Maud Karpeles never wavered from the original idea of the essential purity of folk song, free from commercialisation or vulgarity.

Maud Karpeles was awarded the OBE in 1961, for services to folk music.

Maud Karpeles received two honorary degrees: one from Universite Laval in Quebec and one from the Memorial University of Newfoundland.