Anatol Vieru, born Adolf Grünberg, was a Romanian composer, music theorist, and music teacher. He was born into a Jewish family in Iași, Romania, on 8 June 1926.
During the war, he survived the Iași pogrom; his 1990 composition was dedicated to its victims. He studied at the Bucharest Conservatory from 1946 to 1951, then at the Moscow Conservatory with Aram Khachaturian from 1951 to 1955. Alfred Schnittke later spoke warmly of this period of Vieru's life.
Vieru was a fellow in West Berlin in 1973–1974 and completed a doctoral dissertation in musicology there in 1978. He taught in Darmstadt, Jerusalem, New York, Chicago, and Seattle.
He wrote more than 120 works in all genres, including seven symphonies, eight string quartets, numerous vocal works with and without orchestra, chamber music, and film music. His vocal settings include texts by Mihai Eminescu, George Bacovia, and Urmuz.
Vieru received the Enescu Prize in 1946, the Serge Koussevitzky Prize in 1966, and the Herder Prize in 1986. His works were performed by Oleg Kagan, Natalia Gutman, and other musicians and ensembles.
He married the musicologist Nina Vieru, née Shutikova, in 1954. Their son, Andrei Vieru, born in 1958, became a pianist. Anatol Vieru died in Bucharest, Romania, on 8 October 1998.