George Bălan (11 March 1929 – 3 January 2022) was a Romanian musicologist, philosopher and aphorist.

Born in Turnu Măgurele, Bălan graduated at the Ciprian Porumbescu Conservatory and got his doctorate in musical aesthetics at the Lomonosov University.

[1][2] In 1951 he became musical editor at the Contemporanul magazine in Bucharest; a role he maintained through 1957 and later returned to from 1961 through 1963.

He was then professor in his alma mater and at the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu from 1975 through 1977.

[1][2] In 1977 he moved to Munich in Bavaria, West Germany, where he converted to Catholicism and publicly attacked on various occasions the Romanian communist ruling.