Boris Kotlyarov

Boris Yakovlevich Kotlyarov (, , 1913–1982) was a Soviet ethnomusicologist, violinist and pedagogue. He was mainly known for his work on composers George Enescu and Alan Bush, as well as his extensive studies of the Lăutari violinist tradition of Romania and Moldova.

Biography Kotlyarov was born to a Jewish family in Yelisavetgrad, Russian Empire (now Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine) on 24 November 1913. Upon the outbreak of World War II, he left Belgium for the United Kingdom, where he worked for the Soviet Embassy. His biography of Enescu, translated into English and published in the United States in 1984, is considered to be the first full-length biography of the composer available in English. He also corresponded regularly with the British composer Alan Bush and wrote about him in Russian. And he wrote a number of works on the folk musics of Moldova, Romania, Ukraine, and Russia, and in particular on the Lăutari violin tradition. (The musical life of pre-revolutionary Kishinev; Kartya moldovenyaska, Chișinău, 1967) (Alan Bush, Sovetskiy kompozitor, Moscow, 1981) (From the history of musical interaction between Moldavia, Ukraine, Russia; Shtiintsa, Chișinău, 1982) (The Moldavian lautari and their art; Sovetskiy kompozitor, Moscow, 1989) Enesco: His Life and Times (Paganiniana Publications, New Jersey, 1984)