User:Buchan1963

Maria Ivanovna Roditeleva (18 November, 1962 - ) is a Russian-American ethnomusicologist whose primary area of research has been the Russian village folk music of Bashkiria in the Russian Federation.

Born in Ufa, capital of Bashkiria in the former Soviet Union, she was the only daughter of Soviet judge Ivan Roditelev and Nina Karabelskaya. In recognition of her musical talents, Roditeleva entered a school for the musically gifted and graduated from Ufa's regional music conservatory. She subsequently graduated from the State Institute of Arts History (Leningrad) and became a professor at Herzen Pedagogical University in St. Petersburg. In 2000 she joined the faculty of Central Washington University (Ellensburg, Wash.), and is now an American citizen.

Roditeleva conducted most of her field research in the village of Krasny Zilim, where she recorded the songs of a local singing group and investigated the question of how folk music can enhance the social status of villagers like those in Krasy Zilim. Later research in the summer of 2008 revealed how the Bashkir and Russian governments had begun to confer official status upon the singers of Krasy Zilim as a result of their music activities, which included a meeting with then-President Vladimir Putin and folk music festivals sponsored by Bashkiria.