Alexei N. Aksenov (1909-62) graduated from Moscow Conservatory In 1931 and became a member of the Union of Soviet Composers the following year and remained in Moscow until 1943. During that war year he was sent to the city of Kizil, center of the Tuvin People's Republic. In Tuvin Aksenov collected a large body of folk music and when he returned to Moscow in 1944 he began to study ethnomusicology seriously, continuing his research on Tuvin music until his death.