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Fri 17th May 2024 at 4:30 pm

Cecil Sharp

The Quest for Folk and Dance

Tickets

Event Details

Tickets £5 | The Pizey Room, The Princess Theatre and Arts Centre

Join author David Sutcliffe, in fascinating talk on renowned collector of folk songs and dance, Cecil Sharp.

Cecil Sharp was born in London in 1859 and after ten years in Adelaide, South Australia, he settled in Hampstead as a music teacher. But in 1903 by chance he met a number of folk singers here in Somerset, whose tunes and songs thrilled him – songs that he knew from textbooks but had never heard in live performance. Over the next ten years in his school holidays he travelled across this county, collecting over 740 folk song titles – songs that we still recognise today: Wraggle Taggle Gypsies, Barbara Allen, Dashing away with a smoothing iron, Waly Waly etc. He went on to record and rescue morris dances, sword dances, country dances, carols and sea shanties. He was a pioneer with Ralph Vaughan Williams in what we know call The Edwardian Folk Revival.

This June marks the centenary of Sharp’s death. Come along and celebrate this man’s life and meet the author of his new biography.

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