Nikolay Yankov Kaufman ( bg, Николай Янков Кауфман; 23 September 1925 – 26 March 2018) was a Bulgarian musicologist,

folklorist Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...

and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

, sometimes cited as Bulgaria's foremost scholar in his field. Kaufman was born in the

Danubian The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

town of

Ruse Ruse may refer to: Places *Ruse, Bulgaria, a major city of Bulgaria **Ruse Municipality ** Ruse Province ** 19th MMC – Ruse, a constituency *Ruše, a town and municipality in north-eastern Slovenia * Ruše, Žalec, a small settlement in east-ce ...

to an

Ashkenazi Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...

Jewish Bulgarian family. In 1952, he graduated in trumpet and

music theory Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...

from the National Academy of Music in Sofia. From 1952-88, he worked at the

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (abbreviated BAS; bg, Българска академия на науките, ''Balgarska akademiya na naukite'', abbreviated ''БАН'') is the National Academy of Bulgaria, established in 1869. The Academy ...

' Institute of Music; he then moved to the Institute of Folkloristics. Beginning in 1978, he was a lecturer at the National Academy of Music. He was awarded a doctor's degree in 1973. Kaufman's compositions include over a thousand arrangements of Bulgarian, Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewish

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be c ...

s, his own songs composed in a Bulgarian folk style and piano pieces. Some of the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir's recordings were based on Kaufman's arrangements of Bulgarian folk songs, including some in the choir's Grammy Award-winning album '' Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Vol. II''. Kaufman's work as a musicologist covers the recording of over 30,000 Bulgarian folk songs and tunes, the result of his theoretical and field studies. He produced a number of books, collections and articles. Since 1997, he had been a corresponding member of the

and an academician since 2003. He received a number of professional prizes and awards.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaufman, Nikolay 1925 births 2018 deaths Bulgarian male composers Bulgarian musicologists Bulgarian folklorists Bulgarian Jews People from Ruse, Bulgaria Members of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences