Susman Kiselgof

Susman (Zinoviy Aronovich) Kiselgof (Зусман Аронович Кисельгоф, זוסמאַן קיסעלהאָף Zusman Kiselhof; 1878–1939) was a Russian-Jewish folksong collector and pedagogue associated with the Society for Jewish Folk Music in St.

[1][2][3][4] Like his contemporary Joel Engel, he conducted fieldwork in the Russian Empire to collect Jewish religious and secular music.

[6] After teaching at various institutions in Vitebsk, Kiselgof relocated to Saint Petersburg in 1906, where he became a teacher in the school of the Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia and a choir conductor.

In 1919, he became the musical consultant, teacher and choirmaster for the newly founded Petrograd Jewish Theater Studio of Alexei Granovsky (later known as GOSET).

[5] His wax cylinder recordings were transferred from the Jewish Ethnographic Museum in St. Petersburg to the Institute of Proletarian Culture in Kyiv.

[6] A number of composers affiliated with the GOSET theatre and the Society for Jewish Folk Music used folkloric materials collected by Kiselgof in their compositions.

[5] His original manuscripts, cylinders and materials were held in the Institute of Proletarian Jewish Culture during his lifetime, and upon its dissolution in 1949 were sent to the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine.