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Kate Barnes is an American musician, composer, and publisher who specializes in English Country Dance. Under the name of Peter Barnes, she compiled three widely used collections comprising more than over 1,200 traditional and modern English country dance tunes (The Barnes Book of English Country Dance Tunes). Barnes is a member of many traditional music bands, most notably Bare Necessities in Boston. In 2020, she was awarded a lifetime achievement award for her contributions to traditional music by the Country Dance and Song Society. English country dance is a form of popular dance first collected and codified by John Playford in the 1651 manual "The English Dancing Master." Over time the social dance spread to France, where it evolved into contra dance, which further evolved into square dance in the United States. English country dance differs from the related forms in that each dance is associated with a different tune. There are differences in customs and terminology, as well.

Early life
Kate Barnes was born in Burlington, VT, as Peter Barnes in 1953 and grew up in Waltham, MA, graduating from high school there in 1971 and from Moravian University in 1975, with a degree in English. She came out as Kate in the late 20-teens.

Musical career
Kate Barnes plays piano, flute, whistles and guitar, and a variety of other instruments, according to the Country Dance and Song Society. She dates her musical career to 1977. Since that time she has played with two dozen named bands and any number of pickup bands. She worked extensively with Irish traditional singer Cathie Ryan as a keyboard and wind player from 2001 to 2007. She is best known for her work with the band Bare Necessities, but has also appeared with The Latter-Day Lizards, Yankee Ingenuity, Les Z Boys, Kestral, Big Bandemonium, among others. Mostly under the name of Peter Barnes, she has recorded 15 CDs in the Boston Country Dance Center Series, and is credited on 80 recordings in all. As Kate Barnes, she recorded "At Rainbow's End," 14 tunes that accompany the late English choreographer "Choice Morsels" collection. The CDSS said in 2021 that Barnes averaged "over 250 events per year since 1980" and is "arguably one of New England's busiest and most sought after musicians." She is also active as a ceramics artist and a director of a cooperative studio in Leverett, MA.

Awards and publications
Kate Barnes received the Country Dance and Song Society's 2020 Lifetime Contribution award "in recognition of many years of performance and teaching at CDSS programs, the international importance of her publications, her generosity of spirit when running music workshops, and her contributions to current and future communities."

In addition to her recordings, her first English country dance tune collection (credited to Peter Barnes) was released by Canis Publishing in 1986 and revised in 1995. Volume II followed in 2005, and Volume III in 2019. Each book indexes the previous ones. Volume I includes "A Quick and Dirty Guide to English Dance Accompaniment Styles"; Volume II responded to a growing demand for more tunes, she said in a preface (quipping that it should have been named "The Barnes Edition of ‘Not In Barnes’ Tunes"); and Volume III responded to a "ferment of creativity" in English dance, she wrote in the preface. While copyrighted by Peter, the preface to Volume III is signed by Kate. She also published "Interview With a Vamper," advice on accompanying American contra and square dancing on a piano. A book of tunes for couples dances, "A Little Couple-Dancemusik" was published in print in 1992 but as of 2023 was sold out. It is still available as a digital version. Author last name, first name. Book Title: Subtitle. Place of publication: Publisher, Year.