Professor Nikolay Kauffmann
Professor Dr. Nikolay Yankov Kauffmann was born in 1925 in the city of Rousse, Bulgaria. His parents are Jews from East Europe. He graduated high school in the town of Gabrovo, and later, he studied in the State Music Academy in Sofia. Since 1952 he works in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (in the Music Institute). He was a Music History Professor in the Bulgarian Music Academy until 1999, and now he teaches the same discipline in the Varna Free University.
Professor Kauffmann has numerous works in the field of the musicology, ethnomusicology and folklore studies (his spouse, Dr. Dimtrina Kauffmann, is also a ethnomusicology professor teaching in the Sofia Music Academy). His main specialty is Bulgarian folklore studies and music folklore studies of the Bulgarian minorities. He has important works about:
polyphony in the Bulgarian folk song
comparative musicology
genre studies
folklore-history interactions
music folklore of the Bulgarian Moslems and Jews
Bulgarian town song
Bulgarian work songs
Folklore of the Bulgarian minorities outside Bulgaria - in Asia Minor, Bessarabia, Banat, Russia, etc.
The role of folklore in the music of the Bulgarian composers
He has collected more than 30 000 songs, and many of them are published in numerous important selections: "Folk songs from Southwest Bulgaria ,"(two volumes), "Songs from the Rodopa region," [Bulgaria], "Bulgarian folk ballades,"(two volumes), "Folk songs of the Bulgarians living on the territory of the Ukraine and Moldavia," for this selection, which includes 2543 songs gathered by Kauffmann, he received honorary prizes from the Sofia University and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. He has also published more than 15 other collections of folk songs.
Being a prolific composer, Professor Kauffmann writes mostly for choir - he has more than 2500 songs, many of them published in Bulgaria and abroad. He writes also for piano, two pianos, and chamber music. He has a 6-volume "Antology of the Bulgarian Metrorhythms for Piano," which includes pieces for the young performer, as well as for the professional one.
Another important sphere of activity are his choir arrangements of folk songs. Many of them are recorded in numerous CDs around the world - including the famous "Les Misterie de Voix Bulgares" 4-CD collection. Another Bulgarian folk music CD was recently nominated for a GRAMMY's.
Professor Kauffmann has taught and prepared tens of Bulgarian musicologists. He is the main founder of the Bulgarian Folk Art Gatherings. He has received numerous State and University prices and awards.