Masquerade Folk Dance Band

Daphne Baker:  Keyboard	Graham Knibbs:  Fiddle	Stephen Thomas:  Double bass

Daphne has been involved in English folk dancing and music most of her adult life.  As well as dancing herself and playing for dancing she writes tunes, two of which have been used by Philippe Callens for his dances.  She has known Graham and Stephen for some years, mostly in connection with classical music.  They decided to form a band in 2003 after a very successful collaboration as the musicians for a Dance Leaders' workshop in Canterbury.

They all live in Kent, where they have done most of their playing, but are now travelling further afield to play in various parts of England.  In 2006 they were the musicians for a folk dance course in Belgium led by Kathryn and David Wright.  Daphne has also played for two years running at Christmas Courses in the Netherlands.

Masquerade are very versatile musicians and happily play for club nights, Playford-style evenings, Scottish and American workshops etc.  They have played for Philippe Callens at Cecil Sharp House, and for three years running for social dancing at Broadstairs Folk Week.  They were very well received on their first appearance at Whitby Folk Week in August 2007.

Elizabeth and other dances

Masquerade have produced a CD “Elizabeth and other dances” of dance music selected from Colin Hume's books “Dances with a Difference” Volumes 4 and 5.  It was launched at Whitby Folk Week in August 2007, where Colin called several of the dances from it.  The tracks are:

To book Masquerade for a dance, phone Daphne on 01227 711194 or email her on You must enable JavaScript to see this e-mail address.