Fourteen Fleeting Weeks: Maud Karpeles and Newfoundland Folk Song
by Anna Kearney Guigné and Glenn David Colton
Published jointly by The Ballad Partners (London) and Memorial University Press (Newfoundland)
Thursday 12 November 7-9pm
Cecil Sharp House, London NW1
Free (but please email to reserve a place – steveroud@gmail.com)
Between 1929 and 1930, Maud Karpeles, one of the leading figures in the English folk song and dance revival, made two song collecting expeditions to Newfoundland. Over fourteen weeks of travelling by foot, rowing boat, automobile, coastal steamer, and train, she notated 197 songs from about 115 singers, dispersed over forty-six communities.
Fourteen Fleeting Weeks tells the story of her expeditions through annotated diaries, photographs, and thirty-six previously unpublished songs. It includes new information about the singers and their communities, and highlights the impact of Karpeles’s work on Newfoundland’s musical heritage, the Canadian folk revival, and folklore scholarship at large.
Anna Kearney Guigné is a folklorist, adjunct professor with the School of Music, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and independent scholar. Glenn David Colton is Professor Emeritus (Music), Lakehead University, Ontario.
Many thanks to the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library for their support in this project.
The Ballad Partners is a non-profit co-operative publishing venture specialising in books on folk song, folklore, street literature, and allied topics.
Enquiries – steveroud@gmail.com