Alekseyev, Eduard, 1937 -

Eduard Yefimovich Alekseyev (b. 1937, Yakutia) is an ethnomusicologist who has been conducting fieldwork for forty years in different regions of the former Soviet Union, with a focus on the musical cultures in Siberia. He is well-known as a researcher of traditional music, and for his work on the theoretical problems of mode and melodic scale, intonation, timbre, and notations. In addition, he studies the sociology and psychology of musical perception.

From 1972 until 1992, he served as chairman of the All-Union Folklore Commission of the Union of Soviet Composers. He has also served as Director of the Department of the General Theory of Folklore at the State Institute for Art Studies (Moscow).

He received his Kandidat Degree (Ph.D.) and Doctor of Science degree in Ethnomusicology from the State Institute of Art Studies (Moscow). At the Central Music School, he studied piano and music theory. He later graduated from Moscow Conservatory, where his scientific adviser was the theoretician Leo A. Mazel. Не had the post doctorate course at the State Institute of Art Studies (Moscow) under the guidance of ethnomusicologist Viktor M. Beliaev.

Eduard Alekseyev is the author of more than 100 publications in Russian, including such books as A Study of the Origins of Modality with Regard to Yakut Folk Songs (1976), The Pitch Nature of Primitive Singing (1986), Folklore in the Context of Modern Culture (1988), and The Notation of Folk Music: Theory and Practice (1990). He has resided in Boston, Massachusetts since 1997.

From the guide to the The Eduard Alekseyev Fieldwork Collection of the Musical Culture of Yakutia, 1969-1990., (Archive of World Music, Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University)