In 1925 she graduated from the Music Academy in Sofia, and in 1931 she studied in Berlin with Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Robert Lachmann.

From 1952 to 1962 she was the director of the Institute of Musicology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

From 1965 she was a member of the Societé Internationale d'Ethnologie et de Folklore.

Her students included Stoyan Dzhudzhev, Nikolai Kaufman, and Todor Todorov.

In 1965, she founded the National Festival of Bulgarian Folk Art with Petko Staynov and Anna Kamenova.