Stoin, Vassil
Stoin, Vassil
Stoin, Vassil, Bulgarian ethnomusicologist, father of Elena Stoin ; b. Samokov, Dec. 5, 1880; d. Sofia, Dec. 5, 1938. He taught himself violin at the age of 10, and after graduating from the seminary in Samokov (1897), he taught in neighboring villages until 1907, meanwhile recording folk songs. He studied at the Brussels Cons. (1907–10) and taught music in Sofia, Samokov, and other regions (1911–22), organizing and conducting choirs and orchs. He taught in several schools in Sofia (1922–25), and began lecturing on folk music at the Bulgarian State Academy of Music, becoming a prof. in 1927 and director in 1931. He founded the folk-music dept. of the National Ethnographic Museum (1926). Stoin was one of the first ethnomusicologists to study Bulgarian folk song, transcribing over 9, 000 songs and publishing several collections; he laid a foundation for future studies, particularly those of his daughter. His books include Hypothése sur l’origine bulgare de la diaphome (Sofia, 1925), Balgarskata narodna muzika, metrika i ritmika (Bulgarian Folk Music, Meter, and Rhythm; Sofia, 1927), and Bulgarska narodna muzika (Bulgarian Folk Music; Sofia, 1956).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire