Daniel M. Neuman (1944-) was the Mohindar Brar Sambhi Chair of Indian Music and Interim Director of the Herb Alpert School of Music, University of California, in Los Angeles, California. He has taught at Dartmouth College and University of Washington. Neuman received both his Bachelor of Arts and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Illinois, in Champaign County, Illinois.

Niranjan Benegal, a native of India, was an architect by profession and a resident of Seattle since 1966. Coming from a family of artists, photographers and filmmakers, he pursued photography and film making as a serious hobby. He won several photography awards in collegiate competitions in India and in the U.S. and won the first place award in short films at the 1969 NW Experimental Film Festival in Seattle.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (1948 – 1997), from Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan, was a Pakistani vocalist and musician, primarily a singer of Qawwali, a form of Sufi Islamic devotional music. Khan possessed an extraordinary range of vocal abilities and could perform at a high level of intensity for several hours. He belonged to the Patiala gharana extending the 600-year old Qawwali tradition of his family, Khan helped introduce Qawwali music to international audiences.