Eduard Yefimovich Alekseyev was a Russian-born ethnomusicologist who had conducted extensive field research on traditional music in Siberia and other regions of the former Soviet Union. His research focuses on theoretical problems of mode and melodic intonation, timbre, and notations as well as on sociological and psychological aspects of musical perception. He has served as a chairman of the Folklore Commission of the Union of Soviet Composers from 1972 to 1992. He has also served as a director of the department of the General Theory of Folklore at the Moscow State Institute of Art Studies.