85th birthday of Ivan Yegorovich Alexeyev - Khomus Uybaan
6 March 2026
Personally and in the name of the International Jew’s Harp Society, we herewith would like to congratulate from our whole heart our dear friend, Honorary President of the IJHS, President of the Khomus-Museum and Centre in Yakutsk, Ivan Yegorovich Alexeyev for his 85th birthday.
Ivan Alexeyev belongs to the first generation of the global jew’s harp-renaissance which started simultaneously in the 1960s and was promoted by Fred Crane in the USA, by John Wright in Europe and by Ivan Alexeyev in the Soviet Union.
During this time, Ivan founded the khomus-ensemble “Algys”, with the best jew’s harp-players of Sakha-Yakutia at this time. Members were such renowned master-players like Albina Degtareva and Spiridon Shishigin. After over forty years of prohibition and defamation of this national Yakutian instrument during Soviet times, Ivan Alexeyev was the mastermind of the national renaissance of this most important Yakutian instrument, which in Sakha-Yakutia is much more than a mere instrument, being closely linked to the legendary origin of the Sakha-people, their rituals and spiritual ethnic identity. As a doctor of philological sciences, he well understood the cultural implications of this instrument for his home-country Sakha-Yakutia.
In 1990, “Khomus Uybaan”, as Ivan is called in Sakha-Yakutia, founded the “Khomus Museum of the Peoples of the World”, on the basis of which an international centre was established for research and propaganda of the manifold ways of production and playing-techniques of the jew’s harp all over the world. In 1991, Ivan Alexeyev was the initiator and organizer of the 2nd International Jew’s Harp Festival-Congress, which took place in Yakutsk. During this unforgettable event, which at the sunset of the Soviet Union still succeeded in getting generous funding from Moscow, we got known with each other, and since this time I have the honour to be friends with Ivan.
Dear Ivan, we wish you strong health and many more possibilities to harvest what you have sown and to share your wisdom and humour with all who have the chance to meet with you.
Our deep respect and love to our friend and master Khomus Uybaan.
Franz Kumpl, President IJHS
The first board of the International Jews Harp Society, established at the 3rd International Congress in Molln, 1998.
From left to right: Franz Kumpl (president), Fred Crane (USA), Tran Quang-Hai (France, Vietnam), Manfred Russmann (Austria), Leo Tadagawa (Japan), Robert Zagredtinov (Bashkortostan, RF), Rimma Madvarova (Kyrgyzstan), Ivan Alexeyev(Sakha-Yakutia, RF), Anon Egeland (Norway), Phons Bakx (Netherlands)
Ivan Alexeyev and Franz Kumpl at the 8th International Jew’s Harp Festival-Congress in Taucha/Germany in 2014
Erkin Alexeyev (world virtuoso), Ivan Alexeyev, Dmitry Byastinov (director of Khomus Centre in Yakutsk). During the 10th International Jew’s Harp Festival-Congress in Akan/Japan in 2025
