Ida Halpern

Who was Ida Halpern?

Ida Halpern was a Canadian ethnomusicologist.

Born in Vienna, Austria, Halpern became a Canadian citizen in 1944. She worked among Native Americans of coastal British Columbia during the mid-20th century, collecting, recording, and transcribing their music and documenting its use in their culture. Many of these recordings were released as LPs, with extensive liner notes and transcriptions. Halpern died in Vancouver.

Ida Halpern received a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Vienna in 1938 where she studied under Robert Lach, Egon Wellesz and Robert Haas. She taught at the University of Shanghai, the University of British Columbia, and was an Honorary Associate, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia.

The Ida Halpern Fellowship and Award, "to help support research on Native American Music of the United States and Canada" was established in her honor.