Lawrence Adler (February 10, 1914 – August 6, 2001) was an American harmonica player known for playing major works written for harmonica. During his later career he collaborated with Sting, Elton John, and Kate Bush, among others.

Lawrence Adler (February 10, 1914 – August 6, 2001) was an American harmonica player known for playing major works written for harmonica. During his later career he collaborated with Sting, Elton John, and Kate Bush, among others.

Paul Draper (October 25, 1909 – September 20, 1996) was a noted American tap dancer and choreographer. From 1940-1949, Adler and the dancer Paul Draper formed an act and toured nationally and internationally, performing individually then together in each performance. The act disbanded when they were blacklisted as Communist sympathizers.

Franz Allers (August 6, 1905 - January 26, 1995) was a conductor of a variety of dance and musical performances, especially Broadway orchestras. From 1933 to 1945, he conducted for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In 1945, he shifted his career to Broadway. In 1954, he earned a Grammy nomination for musical direction of the stop-action animation Hansel and Gretel.

Franz Allers (August 6, 1905 - January 26, 1995) was a conductor of a variety of dance and musical performances, especially Broadway orchestras. From 1933 to 1945, he conducted for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. In 1945, he shifted his career to Broadway. In 1954, he earned a Grammy nomination for musical direction of the stop-action animation Hansel and Gretel.

Born Mia Čorak in Austria-Hungary (now Croatia) in 1916, Mia Slasvenska (February 20, 1916 – October 5, 2002) made her debut in Baranović's ballet Licitarsko srce in 1924, at what is today the Croatian National Theatre. She became the prima ballerina of the Zagreb Opera at the age of 17. At the 1936 Berlin Dance Olympics, coinciding with the Olympic Games, she won the Choreography and Dance Award. She began dancing in Vienna. She moved to the U.S. in the late 1930’s as the leading ballerina of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Her own company, Ballet Variante, was formed in 1944 in Hollywood. Her greatest roles she achieved with the Slavenska Franklin Ballet Company that she founded with Frederic Franklin in 1950. One of her most highly regarded roles was as Blanche DuBois in Valerie Bettis' modern choreography of A Streetcar Named Desire, premiered in Her Majesty's Theatre in Montreal in 1952. She became the prima ballerina of the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1954 – 55. She opened a ballet studio in New York in 1960, then taught at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1969 to 1983 and concurrently at California Institute of the Arts from 1970-1983.

Carmen Amaya (November 1913? – November 19, 1963) was a Spanish Romani flamenco dancer and singer. She has been called "the greatest Spanish Romani dancer of her generation" and "the most extraordinary personality of all time in flamenco dance." She was the first female flamenco dancer to master footwork previously reserved for the best male dancers, due to its speed and intensity. She sometimes danced in high-waisted trousers as a symbol of her strong character. She performed in the United States from 1941 to 1947.

Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897 – April 8, 1993) was an Aferican American singer of classical music and spirituals. She performed in concert and recital in major music venues and with famous orchestras throughout the United States and Europe between 1925 and 1965. Anderson was an important figure in the struggle for black artists to overcome racial prejudice in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. She was the first black person to perform at the Metropolitan Opera on January 7, 1955. Anderson worked for several years as a delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Committee and as a "goodwill ambassadress" for the United States Department of State, giving concerts all over the world. She participated in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, singing at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, Anderson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963, the Congressional Gold Medal in 1977, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1978, the National Medal of Arts in 1986, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991.

Encarnación López Júlvez, also known as La Argentinita, (March 3, 1898 – September 24, 1945) was a Spanish-Argentine flamenco dancer, choreographer, and singer together with her sister Pilar López Júlvez. After travelling throughout Spain as a child prodigy, she settled in Madrid. Her success led her to tour in Barcelona, Portugal and Paris, and then on Latin America. In the early 1920s she returned to Spain, where she began to work in Madrid before deciding to retire momentarily in 1926. Her return to the show business was accompanied by an artistic renewal that led her to the "Generation of ‘27," in which she combined flamenco, tango, bulerías and boleros art. With the beginning of the Second Spanish Republic she formed her own ballet company called Bailes Españoles de la Argentinita together with her sister Pilar and the poet Federico García Lorca. She toured through Spain and Paris and toured the Americas after 1934. She was one of the biggest starts of international dance and had great success in the United States, especially New York until her death in 1945.

Salvatore Baccaloni (14 April 1900 – 31 December 1969) was an Italian operatic bass, buffo artist, and actor. Baccaloni was born in Rome and made his professional debut as Bartolo in The Barber of Seville at Rome's Teatro Adriano in 1922. As a part of his international career, he starred as Bartolo in The Marriage of Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera on December 7, 1940. Baccaloni toured with "The Stars of the Metropolitan Opera" South American tour. He was to remain at the Met until 1962. He often sang in Philadelphia with a succession of opera companies from 1951 through to 1966.

Irina Mikhailovna Baronova (March 13, 1919 – June 28, 2008) was a Russian ballerina and actress who became a “Baby Ballerina” at the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at the age of 12. At age 19 she joined the Ballet Theatre under the patronage of Sol Hurok. She retired at age 27 because Cecil Tennant asked her to retire before they wed. She taught master classes and contributed to books and documentaries about her life in ballet until her death in 2008.

Johan Jonatan "Jussi" Björling (February 5, 1911 – September 9, 1960) was a Swedish tenor. One of the leading operatic singers of the 20th century, Björling appeared for many years at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and less frequently at the major European opera houses, including the Royal Opera House in London and La Scala in Milan. In 1937, Björling made his recital debut in London and his first American tour as an adult. During World War II, Björling only performed in Europe. In 1945 Björling returned to the US and appeared frequently at the Metropolitan Opera. He sang many major tenor roles in operas in the French and Italian repertoire.

Richard Bonelli (February 6, 1889 – June 7, 1980) was an American operatic baritone. Born George Richard Bunn in Port Byron, New York, he studied at Syracuse University and made his operatic debut on April 21, 1915 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He toured with the San Carlo Opera Company between 1922 and 1924. After performing at various opera companies in Europe and the United States, he debuted at the Metropolitan Opera on November 29, 1932 and remained on their roster till 1945. After retiring from singing, Bonelli became a successful voice teacher at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, and in New York.

Ivan Bounikoff (December 13, 1893 – February 16, 1972) was a Russian conductor and composer. In 1923, Ivan Bounikoff was appointed as chief conductor of the orchestra of the Conservatory of Athens. He also was musical conductor of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, which performed in Seattle in 1948.

John Carter was born in New York City and performed frequently with the Metropolitan Opera in the years after he won the company's 1937-1938 "Auditions of the Air." He also gave solo recitals throughout the country in the 1940's and 1950's. Mr. Carter succeeded Nelson Eddy on NBC Radio's ''Chase and Sanborn Hour'' in the late 1930's, and later served as the host of a classical-music radio show.

Robert Casadesus (April 7, 1899 – September 19, 1972) was a renowned 20th-century French pianist and composer. Casadesus was born in Paris and studied at the Conservatoire with Louis Diémer. He then entered the class of Lucien Capet, who had exceptional influence. Casadesus found chamber music through Capet. Beginning in 1922, Casadesus collaborated with the composer Maurice Ravel on a project to create piano rolls of a number of his works and performed with him as well. Casadesus toured widely as a piano soloist and often performed with his wife, the pianist Gaby (L'Hôte) Casadesus, whom he married in 1921. From 1935 Casadesus taught at the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau. After the Battle of France Fall of France in 1940, Robert and Gaby established the Fontainebleau School at Newport, Rhode Island. In 1942 the Fontainebleau School was moved to Great Barrington, Massachusetts. After the war, in 1946, Robert Casadesus, now Director of the American Conservatory oversaw its return to Fontainebleau.

Anna Case (October 29, 1887 – January 7, 1984) was an American soprano. She debuted at the Metropolitan Opera at age 20 and was the first American diva to have no formal training. Case also established herself as a concert singer, making many recordings for the Edison company during its "Diamond Disc" period and participating in the company’s “tone test” concert series. She retired from the Metropolitan Opera in 1920 as a result of a romance with communications executive Clarence MacKay. She continued to perform for special events until her marriage to MacKay in 1930. After MacKay died in 1938, she established the "Anna Case MacKay Award" to provide support for the careers of aspiring singers through the Santa Fe Opera, and at her death bequeathed two sapphire necklaces to the Smithsonian Institution believed to contain the largest such stones ever mined.

Walter Cassel (May 15, 1910 – July 3, 2000) was an American operatic baritone and actor. He began his career singing on the radio during the mid-1930s and appeared some Hollywood musical films in the late 1930s. He made his first stage appearances a few Broadway productions during the late 1930s and early 1940s. He began his opera career at the Metropolitan Opera in 1942 and had a long association with the Met Opera that lasted until his retirement from the stage in 1974. In addition to working with the Metropolitan Opera, Cassel was also a regular performer with the New York City Opera between 1948 and 1954 and worked frequently as a freelance artist with important opera companies on the international stage as well as in the United States.

Lewellyn Farr Christensen (May 6, 1909 – October 9, 1984) was a ballet dancer, choreographer and director for many companies. He started in vaudeville and Broadway shows when he became a student at George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet. In 1935, he joined the Metropolitan Opera's American Ballet Ensemble. He also danced with Lincoln Kirstein’s Ballet Caravan between 1936 and 1941. At the onset of World War II, Lew Christensen was drafted into the United States Army. On return to New York in 1946, he joined Balanchine's and Kirstein's latest project, Ballet Society – later to be known as the New York City Ballet – where he became a ballet master. In 1948, he joined his brothers at the San Francisco Ballet. Christensen served as associate director of the San Francisco Ballet in 1949, and was co-director in 1951 with his brother Willam. Christensen transformed the San Francisco Ballet to an internationally recognized neoclassical company. Although he joined the San Francisco Ballet in 1949, Christensen continued to act as ballet master for the New York City Ballet until 1950. In 1952, he became the director of the San Francisco Ballet.

The Ballet Caravan was founded and directed by Lincoln Kirstein in 1936 to produce works by young American choreographers. The company toured the United States in 1938, featuring an ensemble of dancers recruited from the American Ballet (a company and associated school started by Kirstein, Edward Warburg, and George Balanchine in 1934). Ballet Caravan performed at the Moore Theatre in Seattle multiple times. Ballet Caravan opened Cecilia Schultz’s “Dance Theater” series at the Moore Theatre on October 29, 1938. Ballet Caravan performed again in Seattle on November 11, 1939; a performance also arranged by Cecilia Schultz. Ballet Caravan merged with the American Ballet to form the American Ballet Caravan, which toured South America in 1941. After the tour, the combined company disbanded, but formed the basis for the New York City Ballet, founded by Kirstein and Balanchine after World War II. Information from Encyclopedia Britannica and Seattle Times (October 27, 1938 and November 10, 1939).

Marguerite Cobbey (born ? – September 25, 1980) was a soprano. She was a protegee of Nellie Melba and sand Rosina in a production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville presented by Boris Chaliapin on a tour of the United States.

Norman Cordon (January 20, 1904 – March 1, 1964) was an opera singer and music educator. He studied music at the University of North Carolina, the Nashville Conservatory of Music, and Salem College. In 1931, he joined the Merrimen Vocal Quartet of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra as a bass-baritone. That role led to a contract with the Chicago Opera Company and various singing engagements with opera companies in the United States and Canada. In 1936, the Metropolitan Opera offered him a contract and he was a top billing there for ten years. Supplementing his appearances with the Metropolitan in New York, he toured two continents with Metropolitan companies and later made individual appearances in Buenos Aires and in many cities in the United States. He also performed solo concerts for two years across the United States performing opera, spirituals, and other songs. In 1948, he returned to North Carolina to develop cultural interest and participation for music and opera in the state.

Richard Crooks (June 26, 1900 – September 29, 1972) was an American tenor. He initially performed oratorio and recital songs until he made his operatic debut in Hamburg as Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca in 1927. In 1930, he debuted in the United States in Philadelphia. He was a star for the Metropolitan Opera predominantly in French and Italian works. From 1928 to 1945, Crooks was the host of "The Voice of Firestone" radio broadcasts.

Ellabelle Davis (17 March 1907 — 15 November 1960) was an American singer who began her musical career at The Town Hall in 1942. As an opera singer, Davis was the first African American to play the lead role of Aida during her 1946 performance at the Opera Nacional in Mexico. She resumed her role as Aida at La Scala in 1949 and recorded for Decca in February 1950. Posthumously, an opera based on Davis was performed in 2009 and she was inducted into the New Rochelle Walk of Fame in 2011.

Sir Anton Dolin (27 July 1904 – 25 November 1983) was an English ballet dancer and choreographer. His birth name Sydney Francis Patrick Chippendall Healey-Kay but was generally known as Patrick Kay. He joined Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1921, was a principal there from 1924, and was a principal with the Vic-Wells Ballet in the 1930s. He joined the Ballet Theatre when it was formed in 1940 and remained there as a dancer and choreographer until 1946. In 1949, he and Markova founded the Markova-Dolin Ballet and the London Festival Ballet in 1950 where Dolin was the premier danseur and artistic director till 1961. He then organized and toured with the troupe Stars of the Ballet, worked as choreographer and director of the Rome Opera Ballet, and served as artistic adviser to Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. He was knighted in 1981.

The Don Cossack Choir Serge Jaroff was a men's chorus of exiled Cossacks founded in 1921 by Serge Jaroff and conducted for almost sixty years by him.

Paul Draper (October 25, 1909 – September 20, 1996) was a noted American tap dancer and choreographer. From 1940-1949, Adler and the dancer Paul Draper formed an act and toured nationally and internationally, performing individually then together in each performance. The act disbanded when they were blacklisted as Communist sympathizers.

Helene Druke (February 4, 1909 – May 14, 2001) was a duo-pianist with her husband Walter Shaw. Helene was born in Salt Lake City on February 4, 1909, to Julius and Lena Druke. After receiving an elementary education diploma from the University of Utah in 1931, Helene studied piano at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City for eight years. It was there that she met her husband, Walter H. Shaw. After Shaw’s initial pianist partner joined the United States military, Druke joined his act. They performed throughout Europe and the United States for more than 10 years with many symphony orchestras. Druke and Shaw later returned to Salt Lake and taught music. Druke also owned and operated Arthur Murray dance studios in Utah. Due to her philanthropy, she received the Merit of Honor award from the University of Utah Alumni Association's Emeritus Club in 1988.

Katherine Mary Dunham (June 22, 1909 – May 21, 2006) was an African American dancer, choreographer, author, educator, anthropologist, and social activist. Dunham early became interested in dance. While a student at the University of Chicago, she formed a dance group that performed in concert at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1934 and with the Chicago Civic Opera company in 1935–1936. On graduating with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology she undertook field studies in the Caribbean and in Brazil. By the time she received an M.A. from the University of Chicago, she had acquired a vast knowledge of the dances and rituals of Afro-Caribbean culture. In 1938 she joined the Federal Theatre Project in Chicago. Two years later she formed an all-Black company, which began touring extensively by 1943. She choreographed for Broadway stage productions and opera for the Metropolitan Opera. In addition, Dunham conducted special projects for Black high school students in Chicago; she was also artistic and technical director to the president of Senegal from 1966-1967. She also worked in academia and artistic institutions as a professor, artist-in-residence, and director. Dunham was active in human rights causes. She received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1983 and the National Medal of Arts in 1989. [Information from Encyclopedia Britannica].

Robert Todd Duncan (February 12, 1903 – February 28, 1998) was an African American baritone opera singer and actor and one of the first African Americans to sing with a major opera company. In 1934, Duncan debuted in Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana at the Mecca Temple in New York with the Aeolian Opera, a Black opera company. Duncan was George Gershwin's personal choice as the first performer of the role of Porgy in Porgy and Bess in 1935 and played the role more than 1,800 times. His organizing led to the first integrated performance at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. In 1938, Duncan appeared on the London stage at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in C. B. Cochran's musical production The Sun Never Sets. After the London run closed, Duncan and Adelaide Hall from the original cast toured Britain with the production. Duncan taught voice at Howard University in Washington, D.C. from 1930 until 1945. While teaching at Howard, he continued touring as a soloist with pianists William Duncan Allen and George Malloy. He had a very successful career as a concert singer with over 2,000 performances in 56 countries and two film roles. In 1945, he became the first Black person to sing with a major opera company and to sing in an opera with an otherwise white cast when he performed the role of Tonio in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci with the New York City Opera. He retired from Howard and opened his own voice studio teaching privately and giving periodic recitals. Duncan was awarded the George Peabody Medal of Music from the Peabody Conservatory of Music of Johns Hopkins University in 1984. Other awards he received include a Medal of Honor from Haiti, an NAACP Award, the Donaldson Award, the New York Drama Critics' Award for Lost in the Stars, and honorary doctorates from Valparaiso University and Butler University.

Nelson Ackerman Eddy (June 29, 1901 – March 6, 1967) was an American singer, baritone and actor with who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. He was famous for his mass appeal as a “crossover” star. In 1924, Eddy won the top prize in a competition that included a chance to appear with the Philadelphia Opera Society. By the late 1920s, Eddy was appearing with the Philadelphia Civic Opera Company and had a repertoire of 28 operas. Eddy performed in Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the Savoy Company. Eddy was "discovered" by Hollywood when he substituted at the last minute for the singer Lotte Lehmann at a sold-out concert in Los Angeles on February 28, 1933. Eddy continued in occasional opera roles until they conflicted with his filming schedule. Among his final opera performances were with the San Francisco Opera in 1934. Eddy signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), where he made the first 15 of his 19 feature films. Eddy signed with Universal in 1943 for a two-picture deal. Eddy made more than 290 recordings between 1935 and 1964, singing songs from his films, plus opera, folk songs, popular songs, Gilbert and Sullivan, and traditional arias from his concert repertoire. Eddy had more than 600 radio appearances in the 1920’s. He was also a frequent guest on talk shows. In the early 1950’s Eddy formed a successful nightclub act with his singing partner Gale Sherwood and accompanist Ted Paxson. The act continued for 15 years.

Eldridge Byrd Elliot (February 5, 1907-September 16, 1989) was a violinist active during the 1920’s to 1940’s. She was a young prodigy and gained national acclaim.

Anita "Angna" Enters (April 18, 1907–February 25, 1989) was an American dancer, mime, painter, writer, novelist, and playwright. Enters moved to New York to study at the Art Students League of New York in 1929 and began to study dance with Michio Itō the following year, eventually performing as Michio's partner in 1933. That year she created her first piece, an evocation of a statue of a Gothic Virgin, entitled Ecclesiastique. The piece later became Moyen Age. In 1934, she borrowed $25 with which to present her first solo program at the Greenwich Village Theater. Her solo program, The Theatre of Angna Enters, toured the United States and Europe until 1939 and was performed, though less often, until 1960. Enters created a large body of visual art, wrote an autobiography with three volumes, plays, screenplays, and a book about her mime work. She taught at the Stella Adler Studio from 1957-1960. She was artist-in-residence at the Dallas Theatre Center in 1961–1962, and taught mime and Baylor University during that year. She spent the following school year at Wesleyan University. From 1970–1971, she was artist-in-residence at Pennsylvania State University, during which time she gave her last known public performance.

Dorothy Helen Eustis (October 10, 1916-May 20, 2001) was a child prodigy pianist from Seattle. At 13 years old, she made her debut as a soloist with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra in the Orpheum Theatre. Eustis attended college classes at the University of Washington, at the Cornish School, and at Oakland, California’s Mills College. She played hundreds of recitals as a soloist and in duos throughout Seattle. She also participated in The Artiste Trio throughout Washington State. She visited New York City in 1943 and performed at Town Hall and moved there to teach piano at the Manhattan School of Music. During 1944, Eustis played across the country for military audiences. In 1946, John Charles Thomas the concert singer discovered her in Los Angeles and invited her on his West Coast tour. This led to her signing with the management company New York’s National Concert and Artists Corporation, leading to her performances in Hollywood films. In 1947, she married Philip Farnsworth Cannon, an industrial engineer from New York. From the 1960’s onward, the details of Eustis’ life are relatively unknown. She eventually moved to London then to Italy alone, with rumors about a supposed accident and her marriage unanswered. She died after a lengthy hospital stay and time in a convent nursing home in Florence, Italy.

Mary Garden (February 20, 1874 – January 3, 1967) was a Scottish operatic soprano with a substantial career in France and America in the first third of the 20th century. She was also known as a diva who garnered significant media speculation and professional drama. Garden first arose to success in Paris during the 1900’s. She became the leading soprano at the Opéra-Comique, notably portraying roles in several world premieres. In 1907, Oscar Hammerstein convinced Garden to join the Manhattan Opera House in New York where she became an immediate success. By 1910 she was a household name in America and Garden appeared in operas in several major American cities. During the late 1910’s, she starred in two silent films from Samuel Goldwyn: Thais (1917) and The Splendid Sinner (1918). Neither film was successful. In 1922 Garden became the director of the newly formed Chicago Civic Opera where she also performed roles until 1931. Garden retired from opera in 1934.

Carroll Glenn (October 28, 1918 – April 25, 1983) was an American violinist and music educator. She earned many awards at a young age for her violin performance, such as the Town Hall Young Artist Award in 1939, the National Federation of Music Clubs Award, and the Schubert Memorial Award. She debuted with the New York Philharmonic on December 14, 1941, performing the Sibelius Violin Concerto, with critical success. During the 1942–1943 season, Glenn was featured in 21 orchestral concerts throughout North America. She married pianist Eugene List in 1943. They both appeared in concert together in 1946, 1948, and 1949. By 1961, Glenn had made over 90 appearances as soloist with major symphony orchestras. In 1963, Glenn became Artist in Residence at the University of North Texas College of Music, and taught at Temple University, the Interlochen Center for the Arts, and the Eastman School of Music. From 1975 until her death, she divided her teaching between the Manhattan School of Music and Queens College. In 1974, she and List founded the Southern Vermont Music Festival in Manchester. In 1981, her last concert tour was to the People's Republic of China, where she performed and gave master classes at the Peking and Shanghai conservatories.

Igor Gorin (October 26, 1904 – March 24, 1982) was an Austrian baritone and music teacher. Gorin studied at the Vienna Music Academy from 1926 to 1929, studying piano, music theory and formal voice training. Gorin became head cantor at the Leopoldstrasse Synagogue in Vienna and his fame as a cantor became widespread. One of the rabbis who heard him arranged for Gorin to make his operatic debut as Ping in a Swiss performance of Turandot. He subsequently joined a Czech opera touring company and the Vienna Volksoper in 1930. Gorin emigrated to the United States in 1933 to escape Nazi persecution of German and Austrian Jews. Gorin began his career in the U.S. at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City. After that he was engaged for a 10-week stint on NBC's The Standard Hour. It was during these programs that Gorin met the composer Albert Hay Malotte. As a result, Gorin was the first to perform Malotte's famous setting of "The Lord's Prayer". It was to become Gorin's most popular number on radio, on television and in concerts. His 1940 recording of the song became his most popular recorded selection. He also appeared on a variety of radio programs. In 1936, he signed his first recording contract with RCA Victor and made his first recordings in 1937. Gorin went on to become primarily a concert singer who appeared on programs such as The Voice of Firestone and The Bell Telephone Hour regularly. He also appeared in opera performances at a variety of companies around the country.

Arthur Hackett was an American lyric tenor. He was accomplished in oratorio, concert music, and as an orchestral soloist. He appeared with numerous principal symphony orchestras and in recitals across the country from the 1910’s to the 1920’s.

Jascha Heifetz (February 2, 1901 – December 10, 1987) was a Russian-American violinist. He was a prodigy and made his debut at seven years old performing the Violin Concerto in E Minor by Mendelssohn in Kovno, Lithuania. In 1910 he entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. While in his teens, he performed around Europe. In 1914, he performed with the Berlin Philharmonic. On October 27, 1917, Heifetz played for the first time in the United States, at Carnegie Hall in New York, and became an immediate sensation. He became an American citizen in 1925. He played prolifically until 1955, and rarely by 1967. He also starred in some films and television performances and master classes from the 1930’s and 1970’s. He made recordings from 1917 through 1972, mostly through RCA Victor. After an only partially successful operation on his right shoulder in 1972, Heifetz ceased giving concerts and making records although he played privately. Heifetz taught the violin extensively, holding master classes first at UCLA, then at the University of Southern California. In 1989, Heifetz received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Elias Burton Holmes (1870–1958) was an American traveler, Itemer and filmmaker, who coined the term "travelogue." Holmes started as a travel lecturer, supplementing his lectures first with glass slides then film. His extensive travels were later made into distributed films by Paramount and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Sayo Fukuko (Hukuko) (March 5, 1909-December 29, 1989) was a Japanese performer in the Takarazuka Revue, an all-women performance group started in 1914. Sayo debuted with the Takarazuka Revue in 1922 in The Flow of Spring / Dancing Princess Kasuga / Cyrano de Bergerac / Genghis Khan / Wine Cup Dialogues. Sayo was primarily an otokoyaku performer, a type of Takarazuka performer who primarily plays men’s roles. She was one of the first otokoyaku to cut her hair short to perform, as most otokoyaku before kept their long hair hidden on stage. She was the leader of the Moon Troupe in 1938 but retired to marry director Tougo Shizuo. She returned to acting in 1943 on stage and in film until her death.

The Humphrey-Weidman dance company and school were formed in partnership by Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. The two were dancers at the Denishawn dance school and company in Los Angeles. They formed the Humphrey-Weidman Dancers in New York City in 1928. Humphrey developed a new theory and dance technique, in collaboration with Weidman, known as fall and recovery. This technique was featured in the performances of the Humphrey-Weidman Dancers. This dance ensemble was active until 1944. The Humphrey-Weidman Dancers performed in Seattle at the Moore Theatre on March 5, 1938, in a performance arranged and promoted by Cecilia Schultz. Information from Encyclopedia Britannica and Seattle Times (February 27, 1938).

José Iturbi Báguena (November 28, 1895 – June 28, 1980) was a Spanish conductor, pianist, and harpsichordist. He started his musical training at 11 years old at the Valencia Conservatory. Iturbi also studied music with Victor Staub at the Paris Conservatory at age 15. He began touring internationally around 1912 and made his American debut in New York City in 1929. Iturbi made his first appearance as a conductor in Mexico City in 1933. From 1936 to 1944, he was conductor of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in Rochester, New York. He also conducted the Valencia Symphony Orchestra in Valencia, Spain. Iturbi made several short instructional films for the harpsicord and appeared as an actor-performer in several filmed musicals during the 1940’s. His fame in Hollywood led to a reputation of being contentious and not a serious musician because he played contemporary and different music styles, despite his classical repertoire and excellent musicality. He performed into his 80’s and died during a medically-mandated sabbatical at 84 years old. Two music competitions were established in Iturbi’s name: The José Iturbi International Piano Competition in Valencia, Spain was created in 1981 and the José Iturbi International Music Competition at the University of California Los Angeles was created in 2007.

Marie-Jeanne Pelus (August 12, 1920 – December 28, 2007) was an American ballet dancer and coach. Pelus joined Lincoln Kirstein’s Ballet Caravan after only 4 years of ballet training and toured with the group from 1937 to 1940 as the star along with Lew Christensen. In 1940, she became the first American ballerina to join the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo at George Balanchine’s request and was engaged for only two performances. She joined Balanchine’s American Ballet Caravan’s tour of Latin America in 1941. Her dancing style became known as core elements of the Balanchine style and created ballerina roles in Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco and Ballet Imperial. She also danced with the New York City Ballet, Ballet Russe, Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, and Ballet International. She retired in 1954 and went on to teach ballet.

Maryla Jonas (May 31, 1911 – July 3, 1959) was a Polish-born classical pianist. Jonas debuted with the Warsaw Philharmonic in 1920 at the age of 9. In 1926, she started touring throughout Europe. In 1933, Jonas won the Beethoven Prize of Vienna which established her European career. Due to the 1939 German invasion of Poland, she experienced hardship due to her refusal to comply with commands from the German Gestapo. With help from the Brazilian Embassy, she escaped Europe and settled in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Unfortunate news from Europe damaged her mental health and stopped her career for a period. She resumed her career in 1946 in New York City at Carnegie Hall and performed until her death in 1950 at the age of 46.

William Kapell (September 20, 1922 – October 29, 1953) was an American pianist and recording artist. He won his first competition at age 10 and in 1941 won the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Youth Competition in addition to the Naumburg Award. In 1942, he debuted in New York which earned him the Town Hall Award for the year’s outstanding concert by a musician under 30. He then signed an exclusive recording contract with RCA Victor. His signature piece was Aram Khachaturian's Piano Concerto in D-flat. Throughout the 1940’s he toured internationally earning acclaim as a young pianist. In 1953 on a return flight from his Australian tour, the plane crashed on the decent into San Francisco. Shortly after Kapell’s death, Isaac Stern created the William Kapell Memorial Fund to bring notable musicians to the United States in Kapell’s honor. The University of Maryland changed the name of their piano competition to the William Kapell International Piano Competition in 1986.

Suzanne Keener was an actress and performer who performed in the film Love at First Sight in 1930.

Jan Wiktor Kiepura (May 16, 1902 – August 15, 1966) was a Polish tenor and actor. Although he studied law at the University of Warsaw, he performed his first singing concert in 1923 in Sosnowiec, Poland. In 1924, he was admitted by Emil Młynarski to the local choir and performed in the opera Halka and Gounod’s Faust. 1926, Jan Kiepura left Poland for an international career in Germany, Hungary, France, and England. When he returned to Poland, with the money he had earned from his performances, he built the well-known hotel Patria in the Polish border town of Krynica-Zdrój. Kiepura played in twelve Polish musicals from 1926 to 1934. By 1937 Kiepura had married Martha Eggerth, a singer and actress, with whom he appeared in many movies as well as in a production of The Merry Widow on Broadway. He continued to perform internationally and starred in films both in Berlin’s UFA and Hollywood. He performed actively until he died of a heart attack in 1966.

Lincoln Edward Kirstein (May 4, 1907 – January 5, 1996) was an American writer, impresario, cultural figure, and co-founder of the New York City Ballet. His interest in ballet and Balanchine started when he saw Balanchine's Apollo performed by the Ballets Russes. Kirstein became determined to bring Balanchine to the United States. In October 1933, together with Edward Warburg, a classmate from Harvard, and Vladimir Dimitriew, Balanchine's manager, they started the School of American Ballet in Hartford, Connecticut. Just months later, Kirstein and Warburg founded, together with Balanchine and Dimitriew, the American Ballet, which later became the resident company of the Metropolitan Opera. Kirstein's theatrical career was interrupted by the United States' entry into World War II. He enlisted in 1943, and before going overseas, he started working on a project gathering and documenting soldier art. He eventually developed this as the exhibit and book Artists Under Fire. In the spring of 1944, Kirstein traveled to London for the U.S. Arts and Monuments Commission, and after a month, he was transferred to the unit in France that came to be known as the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA). The section was devoted to rescuing and preserving European art. In 1946, Balanchine and Kirstein founded the Ballet Society, which was renamed the New York City Ballet in 1948. Kirstein served as the company's general director from 1946 until 1989. His work spanned all facets of artistic life, including writing, sculpture, studio art, dance, and music.

Miliza Elizabeth Korjus (August 18, 1909 – August 26, 1980) was a Polish-born ethnically Estonian coloratura soprano opera singer and film actress. Born in Warsaw during the Russian Empire, Korjus moved from Moscow then to Kiev to begin her musical training. As a teenager, Korjus toured the Soviet Union with the Dumka Choir. She then began touring the Baltic countries and Germany. Korjus continued her concert career as a soprano in Germany and was eventually engaged by the Berlin State Opera in 1933. Her operatic appearances and recordings quickly propelled her to the forefront of European singers and earned her the nickname "The Berlin Nightingale" and "Gorgeous Korjus". Irving Thalberg, head of production at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, heard her recordings and signed her to a ten-year film contract, sight unseen. She arrived with her husband and daughter in the United States in March 1936. Her sole film for MGM was The Great Waltz in 1938. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the role. Korjus was scheduled to star in a film version of the novel Sandor Rozsa in 1940, but the film was cancelled due to Korjus sustaining injuries from an automobile accident. By 1941, she began a tour of South America. During WWII, Korjus resided in Mexico and made the Spanish-language film Caballería del Imperio. In 1944, Korjus returned to the United States, where she performed at Carnegie Hall. She toured the country for several more years, eventually settling in Los Angeles, California. She later founded Venus Records to release many of her earlier recordings.

Andre Kostelanetz (December 22, 1901 – January 13, 1980) was a Russian-born American orchestral music conductor and arranger. He studied music despite difficulties due to the Russian Revolution. In 1922, Kostelanetz escaped Russia and arrived in the United States. He began conducting concerts for radio during the 1920’s. He became a United States citizen in 1928. In the 1930s, he began his own weekly show on the Columbia Broadcasting System, Andre Kostelanetz Presents. Kostelanetz was known for arranging and recording light classical music pieces for mass audiences, as well as orchestral versions of songs and Broadway show tunes. For many years, he conducted the New York Philharmonic in pops concerts and recordings, in which they were billed as Andre Kostelanetz and His Orchestra. He was married to soprano Lily Pons from 1938 to 1958, which was his second marriage. Kostelanetz’s last concert was with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra at the War Memorial Opera House on December 31, 1979. He then left for a vacation in Haiti, where he contracted pneumonia and died.

La Meri (May 13, 1898 – January 7, 1988) was born Russell Meriwether Hughes in Louisville, Kentucky was an American dancer, choreographer, teacher, poet, anthropologist, and scholar. She studied dance in Texas, Hawaii, and New York learning regional dance styles as well as ballet. She attempted careers as a writer and in the theater before she began working as a dancer. She met impresario Guido Carreras who book her engagements in Mexico City, Mexico. It was there her stage name La Meri was created. In 1928 La Meri began her professional career. Until 1940, she toured and studied in areas such as Central and South America, Europe, North Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, India, Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines, China, Japan, Ceylon, and Hawaii. As she traveled, La Meri learned the native dances of the different areas she visited, studying with local dance masters. She went on to create her own dance works based on the steps and movement vocabularies she learned. She researched the dance styles of Latin America, Spain, Africa, and Asia extensively. In 1940, La Meri and Ruth St. Denis founded the School of Natya in New York City. Through the school, La Meri formed The Five Natyas, her first performing company. In 1945 she absorbed the school of Natya into Ethnologic Dance Center and the Ethnologic Dance Theater, which operated from 1942-1956. La Meri taught regularly at Jacob’s Pillow, gave lecture-demonstrations, and published a number of magazine articles and books about diverse styles of dance.

Charlotte "Lotte" Lehmann (February 27, 1888 – August 26, 1976) was a German soprano. Lehmann debuted at the Hamburg Opera in 1910 as a page in Wagner’s Lohengrin. In 1914, she gave her debut as Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Vienna Court Opera which she joined in 1916. She created roles in the world premieres of several operas by Richard Strauss. In her 21 years with the company, Lehmann sang more than fifty different roles at the Vienna State Opera. From 1924 to 1935 she performed regularly at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden performing her Wagner roles along with other works. She appeared regularly at the Salzburg Festival from 1926 to 1937. In 1930, Lehmann made her American debut in Chicago as Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walküre. She returned to the United States every season and performed several times in South America. Before Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Lehmann emigrated to the United States. There, she continued to sing at the San Francisco Opera and the Metropolitan Opera until 1945. In addition to her operatic work, Lehmann was a renowned singer of lieder, a German style of music where poetry is set to classical music. In 1947 she helped found the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. Lehmann started in the film Big City in 1948. After her retirement in 1951, she taught master classes at the Music Academy of the West and other large cities around the world. In addition to singing, she also was a prolific author and painter.

Oscar Levant (December 27, 1906 – August 14, 1972) was an American concert pianist, composer, music conductor, author, radio game show panelist, television talk show host, comedian and actor. He initially moved to New York to begin his piano career but moved to 1928 where he established his career. From 1929 to 1948 he composed the music for more than twenty movies and many popular songs. In 1938, Levant became a conductor on Broadway. He was also a regular panelist on the radio quiz show Information Please during the 1930’s and 1940’s, where he was known for his quick wit. From the 1930s through the mid-1950s, Levant appeared in many feature films, often playing a pianist or composer. From 1947 to 1949, Levant regularly appeared on NBC radio's Kraft Music Hall with Al Jolson. Between 1958 and 1960, Levant hosted a television talk show on KCOP-TV in Los Angeles, The Oscar Levant Show. His struggles with mental health led him to withdraw from public life. He died of a heart attack in 1972 at age 65.

Eugene List (July 6, 1918 – March 1, 1985) was an American concert pianist and teacher. List began his musical studies as a young age and was quickly named a prodigy. In 1929, he performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at 12 years old. He studied at the Philadelphia Conservatory until he was old enough to transfer to Juilliard in New York. His success as a young musician lasted throughout his 50-year career. He performed with almost every American major orchestras and conductors, and was well-known in Europe, South America, and Asia. He enlisted in the Army during WWII serving primarily in the Special Services. List played for President Truman and his staff at the Potsdam Conference in June 1945. After WWII, he starred in the movie The Bachelor’s Daughter. Together with his wife Carroll Glenn, he joined the faculty of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Later he taught at New York University and Carnegie Mellon. He continued to perform until his sudden death from a fall in 1985.

Pierre Luboshutz (June 17, 1891 - April 17, 1971) was a Russian concert pianist. He studied piano at the Moscow Conservatory and graduated in 1912. He performed with his two sisters in the successful Luboshutz Trio. The group ended when Lea Luboshutz left the country due to the Russian Revolution. Luboshutz became a popular accompanist for performers such as dancer Isadora Duncan and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. Luboshutz left the Soviet Union permanently in 1925, joining his sister Lea Luboshutz in Paris often serving as her accompanist. He also taught at the Paris Conservatory where he met his future wife, pianist Genia Nemenoff. The two eventually married in the United States in 1931 and they decided to settle in New York City. On January 18, 1937, they debuted a two‐piano concert tour under the name Luboshutz-Nemenoff, with their first performance taking place at The Town Hall in New York City. They performed and toured extensively through the United States, Europe, and South Africa. The duo accepting teaching positions at the New England Conservatory of Music and in the piano department of Michigan State University, which they headed from 1962 to 1968. The couple then returned to New York City, and lived between there and Rockport, Maine. In 1971, Luboshutz died in Rockport, at the age of 76.

Genia Nemenoff (October 23, 1905 – September 16, 1989) was born in France and began her performing career as an accompanist to singers. In 1931 she married pianist Pierre Luboshutz and in 1937 the debuted as a duo piano act. In 1989, Genia Nemenoff died of heart failure at her home in Manhattan.

Josephine Lucchese (July 24, 1893 – September 10, 1974) was an American operatic soprano. At the age of 18, Lucchese traveled with Colombati to New York City to pursue music studies. She made her professional singing debut at Aeolian Hall in Manhattan on November 26, 1919 giving a recital of art songs and arias. A year later, on September 22, 1920, she made her professional opera debut as Olympia in Jacques Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann with Fortune Gallo's touring San Carlo Opera Company at the Manhattan Opera House. She toured with the San Carlo Opera Company for the next five years. In 1926 she made her debut with the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company (PGOC) as Gilda to Millo Picco's Rigoletto. She later became a resident artist with the PGOC from 1929 until the company's bankruptcy in 1932. In 1933, she appeared in concert performances of Rigoletto and La Traviata with the Philadelphia Orchestra before once again becoming a member of the San Carlo Opera Company. In 1939 she was a principal artist with Vito Parisi's Imperial Grand Opera Company. Lucchese also performed throughout Europe both on tour with opera companies and as a resident artist; she became known as “The American Nightingale” in Europe. From 1956 to 1971, Lucchese taught singing at the University of Texas.

Barbara Lull Rahm (January 1905 - 1978) was an American violin prodigy. In 1919, Lull had her first public recital at the Twentieth Century Club House in Berkeley at the age of 14. At 25, she moved to New York to continue her violin training with Leopold Auer and Alexander Block. After a New York debut in 1925, she went to London and was offered an engagement in Albert Hall. She played tours throughout Europe and North America as well as performing with numerous American orchestras. In 1929, she married Louis Rahm and moved to Princeton; he discouraged her career, however she still taught and played chamber music until she divorced Rahm in 1947. She became concertmaster and assistant conductor of the University of California Symphony, was principal second violin of the Oakland Symphony, and continued to teach at UC Berkeley and privately.

Christopher Lynch (1921-April 15, 1994) was an Irish tenor singer, born in Rathkeele, Co. Limerick, Ireland. A protégé of the great Irish tenor John McCormack, he moved to the United States in 1946 when he was chosen by Harvey Firestone to succeed Richard Crooks as the lead tenor on "Voice of Firestone," first on radio and later on television. He stayed with the show until 1954. Mr. Lynch often toured the United States, appearing with orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy. He also sang the songs for the film "The Hills of Ireland" and recorded for RCA and Columbia.

Claude Madden was a Seattle-based composer, violinist, and chorister. was heavily involved in Seattle music as he was the Musical Director of the Amphion Society, President of the Seattle Clef Club and the Seattle Composer’s Society, and was conductor for the Arion Society, the Ladies’ Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Orpheus Society of Tacoma. He was active during the 1910’s and possibly longer.

Leonid Fyodorovich Myasin (August 9, 1896 – March 15, 1979) was a Russian choreographer and ballet danger known in the West by the French transliteration Léonide Massine. In 1904, Massine successfully auditioned for the Moscow Imperial Theater School. At 8 years old, he began his formal dance training. His first role was as Chernomor in the ballet Rusian and Ludmilla. Massine was selected for three more professional roles at the Bolshoi and Maly Theaters through the 1908-1909 season. In August 1913, Massine graduated from the Moscow Imperial Theater School and almost immediately joined the Bolshoi Ballet. In December 1913, Massine was invited to audition for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Massine was their principal choreographer from 1915 to 1921. In 1933, Massine replaced Balanchine in Col. De Basil’s Ballet Russes de Monte-Carlo. In 1933, Massine created the world's first symphonic ballet, Les Présages, using Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 and continued to do so for Choreartium, set to Brahms' Fourth Symphony in 1933 and Hector Berlioz's 1830 Symphonie Fantastique in 1936. In 1937, Massine and René Blum started a new ballet company also called the Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo. They sued de Basil for the name and rights to Massine’s ballets, winning the name and Massine’s ballets from before 1932. The new company debuted in 1938 and Massine left in 1942. Later he appeared with the Ballet Theatre and the Royal Ballet. In 1966, he joined the newly formed Ballet de Monte Carlo as choreographer and artistic director. He also choreographed and danced for film.

Ruth Mata (Meta Krahn) and her husband and partner Eugene Hari (Otto Ulbricht) were international dance satirists. Originating as dancing comedians with Trudi Schoop’s European dance troupe headquartered in Switzerland, where both were born and raised around Zurich. After four transcontinental tours, the pair remained in the USA when the troupe returned to Europe in 1939. They appeared at La Martinique, the Beachcomber, the Hole Pierre and Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe in New York, the Chez Paree in Chicago, and Ciro's in Hollywood. They debuted on Broadway in The Straw Hat Revue and followed this with a long run in the Olson and Johnson stage musical Laffing Room Only for extended engagements in New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and Detroit. Mata and Hari also entertained on stage at New York's Radio City Music Hall and the Roxy Theatre. In addition to many performances at the National Theatre and in Carnegie Hall where they performed a famous sketch parodying the audience, the musicians and the conductor, they also presented programs before the International Monetary conference at Bretton Woods and before President Harry S Truman and his guests at a command performance in the East Room of the White House. [Information from Louis Rugani on IMDb].

Dorothy Maynor (September 3, 1910 – February 19, 1996) was an African American soprano, concert singer, and the founder of the Harlem School of the Arts. Dorothy attended the Hampton Institute where she studied under R. Nathaniel Dett. After her graduation from the Institute in 1933 she received a four-year scholarship to the Westminster Choir School in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1939, she performed at the Berkshire Festival where she was noticed by Sergei Koussevitzky, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Koussevitzky arranged her debut at The Town Hall in New York City on December 9, 1939. She received the Town Hall Endowment Series Award for 1940 because of this performance. Maynor toured extensively throughout the USA, Europe, and Latin America, performing in concert halls and frequently on the radio despite restrictions to her performance venues due to her race. She is noted as the first African American to sing at a presidential inauguration, performing at President Harry S. Truman's inaugural gala in 1949 and at President Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1953 presidential inauguration at Constitution Hall. In 1964, she founded the Harlem School of the Arts which was designed to give music education at a reduced rate to the children of Harlem. She received honorary degrees from several universities including Westminster Choir College, Oberlin College, The Hartt School of Music (University of Hartford), and two degrees from Howard University. In 1975, she became the first African American on the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Opera. She died on February 19, 1996 in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

Kathryn Meisle (October 14, 1899—January 17, 1970) was an American operatic contralto. Meisle was born in Philadelphia and began her music studies when she was five years old; she began performing concerts when she was nine. When she was 15 years old, she played as a pianist in a silent movie cinema in Philadelphia. In 1912 she became a soloist at the Christian Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and sang then also in a vocal quartet. In 1915 she won the National Federation of Music Clubs' National Singing Competition, after which she began studying music in Philadelphia. She made her professional debut as a soloist with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Emil Oberhoffer in 1920. She made her operatic debut as Erda in the Wagner opera Siegfried on November 18, 1923 at the Chicago Civic Opera. She also performed opera in San Francisco and Los Angeles before beginning a European concert tour in 1930. In 1933, she performed at President Franklin Roosevelt’s inauguration. Meisle made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Amneris in Aida on February 28, 1935. Her Met career was brief, with a total of eleven performances from 1935-1938. In addition to her opera performances, she also gave recitals and performed with orchestras across the country. After performing, she taught voice.

Lauritz Melchior (March 20, 1890 – March 18, 1973) was a Danish-American opera singer who was well-known for his Wagner tenor performances from the 1920’s to the 1940’s. Melchior studied operatic voice at the Royal Opera School in Copenhagen in 1908. In 1913, Melchior made his debut in the baritone role of Silvio in Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. He primarily sang secondary baritone and bass roles for the Royal Danish Opera and provincial Scandinavian opera companies for the next few years. Due to others hearing potential in his voice, from 1917-1918 he took additional voice training and was recast as a low tenor with a strong high extension. His second debut was on October 8, 1918 in the title role of Tannhäuser, also at the Royal Opera in Copenhagen. On May 14, 1924 Lauritz Melchior made his debut as Siegmund at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London. On February 17, 1926 he gave his first performance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Although he was not an immediate success at the Met, he gained prominence after a 1929 performance in Tristan und Isolde and went on to sing 519 performances at the Met from 1926 to 1950. Melchior appeared at Covent Garden from 1924 to 1939. Other important stations of his career were in the Buenos Aires (Teatro Colón) (1931–1943), San Francisco Opera (1934–1945) and Chicago Opera (1934–1945). Between 1944 and 1952, Melchior performed in five Hollywood musical films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Paramount Pictures and made numerous US radio and television appearances. In 1947, his hand and foot prints were placed at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood; he also became an American citizen the same year. From 1946 to 1949 Melchior went on a world tour with his personal conductor Ezra Rachlin. Following unofficial retirement around 1955, Melchior made sporadic singing appearances. In the late 1960s, he established a fund through the Juilliard School for the training of potential heldentenors called "The Lauritz Melchior Heldentenor Foundation." Melchior died in Santa Monica, California in 1973, two days before his 83rd birthday.

James Melton (January 2, 1904 – April 21, 1961) was an American popular and operatic singer in the 1920s and 1930s. He received vocal instruction from Gaetano de Luca in Nashville from 1923 to 1927 before moving to New York where he studied with Enrico Rosati. The following year, he began singing on New York radio for no pay. He joined the caberet group "Roxy's Gang” led by Samuel Roxy Rothafel. He made records for Victor Records, singing as one of the tenors with The Revelers and for Columbia Records with the same group under the pseudonym of The Singing Sophomores. He frequently sang with popular singer Jane Froman and appeared with her in film as well. Melton recorded his first songs under his own name for Columbia in 1927. He quickly became a popular singer and made numerous vocal recordings as well as singing vocal choruses for dance records. As tenor voices fell out of style in popular music, Melton pivoted his career towards classical music. He began to classically train his voice and gave his first concert performance at Town Hall on April 22, 1932 in New York. He then embarked on an American and Canadian concert tour along with songwriter George Gershwin in 1934. In 1938, he appeared with the Cincinnati Zoo Opera Company as Pinkerton in Puccini's Madama Butterfly and with the St. Louis Opera Company as Alfredo in Verdi's La Traviata. He worked with the Chicago Civic Opera from 1940 to 1942. On December 7, 1942, Melton debuted at the Metropolitan Opera as Tamino in Mozart's The Magic Flute. He continued to perform at the Met through 1950. Melton continued to perform on the radio extensively. He also appeared in movie musicals from 1935-1937 and 1946. Melton spent the 1950s making records, singing in nightclubs, appearing on television, including Ford Festival (1951–1952) also known as The James Melton Show, and collecting rare automobiles.

Yuhudi Menuhin (April 22, 1916 – March 12, 1999) was an American violinist and conductor who performed predominantly in Britain. He is considered to be one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century. Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York City to a family of Lithuanian Jews. Menuhin displayed exceptional musical talent at an early age. His first public appearance, when he was seven years old, was as solo violinist with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1923. As a teenager he toured widely, winning admiration both for his technical proficiency and for his musical interpretation. In 1929, the Menuhins moved to Basel, Switzerland and Yehudi studied with Adolf Busch. They then moved to Paris where he continued his studies. He began recording in 1931. He continued performing regularly until WWII. During World War II Menuhin performed around 500 concerts for Allied troops, and in 1945 he and composer Benjamin Britten went to Germany to perform a series of concerts for recently liberated inmates of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. In 1957, he founded the Menuhin Festival Gstaad in Gstaad, Switzerland. In 1963, he established the Yehudi Menuhin School in Stoke d'Abernon, Surrey. Menuhin widened his musical scope and began conducting, going on to conduct most of the major world orchestras. Menuhin began conducting and conducted most of the major world orchestras. In addition, he presided over the annual music festivals at Gstaad, Switzerland (from 1957); and Bath (1959–68) and Windsor (1969–72), England. In 1965, he received an honorary knighthood from the British monarchy, receiving the full title in 1985 when he became a British citizen. Menuhin also had a long association with Ravi Shankar, beginning in 1966 with their joint performance at the Bath Festival and the recording of their Grammy Award-winning album West Meets East (1967). He received the Order of Merit in 1987 and was made a life peer in 1993. By the 1990s Menuhin had retired from playing violin and was conducting exclusively. In 1999, he died in the Martin Luther Hospital in Berlin.

Maria Montana (January 23, 1893 – March 16, 1971) was a coloratura soprano born Ruth Kellogg Waite in Wallace, Idaho. She grew up in Montana. At age 13, she debuted as a soloist in The Mikado in 1906. She performed around Montana until she entered the Toronto Conservatory of Music in 1914 performing throughout her education. After visiting her brother in East Asia, she moved to New York around 1920. She then moved to France to attend the American Conservancy of Music in Fontainbleau in 1921. She toured around Italy under the stage name Marie Montana around this time as well as performed opera when she was not at the conservatory. She returned to the United States in 1925 and toured around the country. In June, Montana won an audition as soprano for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for an August concert managed by the National Music League; she was soon advertised under their management. She also performed on the National Concert Orchestra radio broadcasts and toured the United States throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s. Around 1930, she was managed by Grace Rankin and L.E. Behymer. She sang in Seattle in July of 1928 and January 1935. During the 1940’s, Montana settled in Minnesota with her uncle Edward, performing locally. She was also active with the Bahá'í religious community from the 1940’s through the 1960’s, advocating for the faith and singing at their events until her death in 1971.

Nina Morgana (November 15, 1891 – July 8, 1986) was an Italian American coloratura soprano. She began singing early and caught the attention of Enrico Caruso who sent her to soprano and vocal instructor Teresa Arkel in Milan, Italy to study voice from 1909 to 1913. Morgana premiered at La Scala in 1911. From 1917 to 1919, Morgana was an assisting artist with Enrico Caruso during his North American concert tours. She was with the Chicago Opera in the 1919-1920 season. She sang with the Metropolitan Opera from 1920 to 1935. She also gave live concerts and radio performances. She no longer accepted singing engagements after 1935.

Erika Morini Siracusano (January 5, 1904 – October 31 or November 1, 1995) was a Jewish Austrian violinist. Morini was a child prodigy in the violin and began her musical training at the Vienna Conservatory when she was 8 years old. She debuted in 1916 giving her first orchestral concert. She debuted in New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1921 before she embarked on a sixty-concert tour of North and South America. Due to her acclaim after her New York debut, she received the Guadagnini violin of the late violinist Maud Powell. In 1932, she married manager and art dealer Felice Siracusano. They settled in New York in 1938. She continued a celebrated international career until 1976. Throughout her life she won many awards, received honorary doctorates from Smith College, Massachusetts, in 1955 and from the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, in 1963, and the City of New York honored her lifetime achievement with a gold medal in 1976. [Information from the Jewish Women’s Archive].

Mariko Mukai Ando (April 29, 1919 – March 10, 2017) was a Seattle-born Japanese American coloratura soprano. She began performing at 10 years old and studied music at the University of Washington beginning in 1937. In 1938, Mariko became the first and only Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) to sing in a grand opera in Seattle as Abigail in The Queen of Sheba. At University of Washington she performed as Susanna in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro and Rosina in Rossini’s Barber of Seville (1940). In 1941, she was awarded a four-year scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music in New York. After she moved to New York, she faced discrimination and racism after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. After her father was arrested under accusation of being a Japanese loyalist, her family relocated to Moses Lake and farmed to avoid incarceration. From New York, Mariko advocated for her father’s release from a detention center by letter and telegram. She supported herself through performance, receiving acclaim for her concerts in Town Hall and Little Carnegie Hall. She first performed on radio in 1946. In 1947, she married Tomomi Ando, a Japanese American military officer from Texas. He was soon stationed in Japan where Mariko followed and gave birth to their first three children. In 1954, the Ando family moved to Colorado and Mariko resumed her singing career, performing in Denver’s Tabor Grand Opera House as Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto. In 1955, Mariko sang for President Dwight D. Eisenhower and First Lady Mamie Doud Eisenhower. The Ando family moved several times after following Tomomi’s deployments, where Mariko continued her career through directing and performing solos in choirs locally. [Information from Mariko Mukai Ando’s Obituary at Donald V. Borgwardt Funeral Home].

Patrice Munsel (May 14, 1925 – August 4, 2016) was an American coloratura soprano. Born in Spokane, Washington Munsel went to New York at 15 years old to study voice. Munsel first sang at the Metropolitan at age 17 in March 1943. She made her official Metropolitan debut on December 4, 1943, aged 18, singing Philine in Mignon. She was the youngest singer ever to star at the Metropolitan Opera. She performed at the Metropolitan Opera in 225 performances. She performed frequently on television including the eponymous Patrice Munsel Show which ran from 1957-1958 and produced by her husband Robert C. Schuler. She also starred in the title role of the 1953 film Melba. Munsel made frequent television appearances on The Bell Telephone Hour, and was the central singer in the Camp Fire Girls' famous TV commercial and song "Sing Around the Campfire (Join the Camp Fire Girls)", aired in the mid-1960s. Munsel made her final performance for the Metropolitan Opera on January 28, 1958, in the title role in La Périchole. She appeared on stage as a guest during the 1966 Gala Farewell to the old opera house at Broadway and 39th Street. Munsel ended her career as an opera singer in 1981, and began to perform in musical comedies. She retired from performing in 2008.

The Metropolitan Opera in New York City is the leading American opera company. The company was started in 1883. Since then it is famous for the outstanding singers it has attracted. Cecilia Schultz presented many singers from the Metropolitan Opera to Seattle audiences during her impresario career. [Information from Encyclopedia Britannica].

Richard Norris was a San Francisco pianist. Cecilia Schultz and the Allied Arts of Seattle sponsored his performance at the Cirque Playhouse on March 12, 1961.

Jarmila Novotná (September 23, 1907 – February 9, 1994) was a Czech soprano, actress, and star of the Metropolitan Opera. She made her debut in 1926, singing Rosina in The Barber of Seville and Violetta in La Traviata at a provincial theatre, and the following year sang Marenka in The Bartered Bride at the Prague Opera. After further study in Milan, in 1928 she appeared at the Verona Arena as Gilda in Rigoletto. Engaged at the Berlin State Opera in 1929, she made her debut as Concepcion in L'Heure Espagnole at the Kroll Theatre. After four years in Berlin, in 1933 she joined the Vienna State Opera, where she sang several "trouser roles:" Cherubino, Oktavian and Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus and Lehar's Giuditta. Appearing from 1935 at Salzburg, she sang Euridice and Frasquita in Hugo Wolf's Der Corregidor, Countess Almaviva and, in 1947, Pamina in performances of Die Zauberflote conducted by Toscanini. The same year she sang Alice Ford in Falstaff at La Scala, Milan, before leaving Europe in 1938. Novotna made her US debut in 1939 at San Francisco, singing the titular role in Madama Butterfly and Violetta in La Traviata. Her Metropolitan debut took place on January 5, 1940 as Mimi in La Boheme. After the Second World War she returned to Prague and Salzburg. In 1957, she went back to Vienna for a new production of Leo Fall's Madame Pompadour at the Volksoper. [Information from Jarmila Novotna’s Obituary in the Independent].

Nicholas Oeconomacos (1863-1945) was a Greek clarinetist who performed with the Seattle Symphony. He studied music in Athens before attending the Conservatoire National de Paris in France. In 1903, he came to America with the French Grand Opera Company. He then did two world tours with John Phillip Sousa. In 1904, Oeconomacos settled in Seattle teaching at the Columbia College of Music and Dramatic Art and performing as principal clarinetist for the Seattle Symphony Orchestra from 1910 until 1933. During the Great Depression, he busked in the streets for money to pay his mortgage. Oeconomacos also taught music in Bothell for many years. His second home in Seattle, called the House of the Terrestrial Globe, was well known for its distinct architecture.

Adrina Otero was a Spanish dancer during the 1930’s.

Jan Peerce (June 3, 1904 – December 15, 1984) was an American operatic tenor. Born Jacob Pincus Perelmuth in New York City, he studied singing and was hired as a tenor soloist with Radio City Music Hall in 1932. The impresario Samuel “Roxy” Rothafel changed his name to Jan Peerce. Through radio performances, he earned a national following. Arturo Toscanini invited him to sing with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Peerce also was a principal for the Philadelphia La Scala Opera Company from 1938 to 1941. He debuted with the Metropolitan Opera on November 29, 1941 singing Alfredo in Verdi’s La Traviata. He performed with the Metropolitan Opera until 1967. During the 1950s Peerce performed regularly as a featured soloist under the conductor Alfredo Antonini at the Lewisohn Stadium in New York City. In 1952, Jan Peerce toured South America with a company called "Stars of the Metropolitan Opera.” In 1956, Peerce traveled to Moscow as a musical "cultural exchange" ambassador, being the first American to sing with the famed Bolshoi Opera. In 1971, he made his Broadway debut as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. He continued to make occasional appearances until his retirement in 1982. Peerce also made extensive recordings under RCA Victor as a “Red Seal” artist from the late 1930’s to the early 1960’s. His signature song “Bluebird of Happiness” was recorded under the label three times.

Egon Petri (March 23, 1881 – May 27, 1962) was a Dutch pianist who was born in Germany. Although he initially played and performed with the violin, Petri concentrated on the piano. He studied composition and theory at the Dresden Conservatory and was a pupil of Ferruccio Busoni. Petri debuted as a pianist in 1902 and subsequently toured Europe extensively. He was professor of music at the Manchester Royal College of Music from 1905 to 1911. In 1915, he joined his mentor Busoni is Switzerland to edit Bach’s keyboard works. After this, Petri taught at the Hochschule für Musik from 1921 to 1926. For many years Petri also taught masterclasses at the Basle Conservatory. In 1921, he joined F. Busoni in a concert of two-piano music at London, and in 1923 became the first foreign-born solo artist to perform in the Soviet Union, so successfully that he played 31 concerts in 40 days. In 1927, Petri moved to Zakopane, Poland, where he lived until 1939. On January 11, 1932 he made his American debut in New York, then performed in both Europe and the United States until the outbreak of World War II. He also taught at Boston's Malkin Conservatory in 1934-1935. Petri moved permanently to the United States during WWII and was pianist-in-residence at Cornell University from 1940 to 1946 then at Mills College from 1947 to 1957. He also taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music from 1952 to 1962. After World War II, he began touring extensively. He made his farewell concert appearance in a recital in 1960.

The Phildadelphia Orchestra is a “Big Five” American symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The orchestra was founded in 1900 by Fritz School, who was also the first conductor. Leopold Stokowski became music director in 1912 and brought the orchestra to national prominence. In 1925, it was the first symphony orchestra to make electrical recordings. In 1929, It was the first orchestra to make a commercially sponsored radio broadcast, which aired on NBC and in 1948 they were the first to appear on a television broadcast, which aired on CBS. Under his guidance, the orchestra gained a reputation for virtuosity, and developed what is known as the "Philadelphia Sound." Stokowski left the orchestra in 1941.

Gregor Piatigorsky (April 17, 1903 – August 6, 1976) was a Russian-born American cellist. He first played the cello at 7 years old and began to support his family playing in cafes, brothels, and for silent movies. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory of Music and was the principal cellist of the Bolshoi Opera Orchestra and a member of the Beethoven String Quartet by age 15. In 1921, Piatigorsky left Russia for Poland. He briefly served as principal cellist of the Warsaw Symphony and then made his way to Leipzig to join the class of cellist Julius Klengel. Following his studies in Leipzig, Piatigorsky moved to Berlin. He was then appointed principal cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic. During this time, he also performed as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician alongside other well-known musicians. After leaving the Berlin Philharmonic, Piatigorsky began a solo career, where people began seeing the cello as a solo instrument for the first time. In 1937, he married Jacqueline de Rothschild in Ann Arbor, Michigan and returned to France. After World War II began, the family moved to Elizabethtown, New York. When Piatigorsky was appointed to the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music, the family moved to Philadelphia. In 1949, he relocated once again to Los Angeles, first teaching at UCLA and later in 1962 joining violinist Jascha Heifetz on the faculty of the University of Southern California where he spent much of his time teaching and performing chamber music. [Information from The Piatigorsky Foundation].

Ezio Pinza (May 18, 1892 – May 9, 1957) was an Italian opera singer. He spent 22 seasons at New York's Metropolitan Opera, appearing in more than 750 performances of 50 operas from 1926 to 1948. Pinza also sang at the San Francisco Opera and at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London. After retiring from the Metropolitan Opera in 1948, Pinza enjoyed a fresh career on Broadway in musical theatre, most notably in South Pacific, in which he created the role of Emile de Becque. He also appeared in several Hollywood films.

Rosa Ponselle (January 22, 1897 – May 25, 1981) was an American operatic soprano. Rosa performed piano as a silent-movie accompanist and also in a vaudeville double act “The Ponzillo Sisters” with her sister Carmela before she joined the Metropolitan Opera in 1918. She sang with the Metropolitan Opera until she inconspicuously retired in 1937. She settled in Baltimore and advised the Baltimore Civic Opera Company.

Alice Joséphine Pons (April 12, 1898 – February 13, 1976), known professionally as Lily Pons, was a French-American operatic soprano and actress. As an opera singer she specialized in the coloratura soprano repertoire and was particularly associated with the title roles in Lakmé and Lucia di Lammermoor. In addition to appearing as a guest artist with many opera houses internationally, Pons enjoyed a long association with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, where she performed nearly 300 times between 1931 and 1960. She also had a successful and lucrative career as a concert singer which continued until her retirement from performance in 1973. She was also well known for marketing herself well, serving as the face for many brands, contributing advice to women’s magazines, and other media pursuits.

Josephine Mary Premice (July 21, 1926 – April 13, 2001) was a Haitian American actress and singer. Premice was born in Brooklyn, New York and her parents were exiled Haitian aristocrats. Josephine Premice was one of the premier stage actresses of the 1940s and 1950s. She appeared in numerous Broadway plays including Blue Holiday, Jamaica, A Hand is on the Gate, and Bubbling Brown Sugar, earning two Tony award nominations for her performances. She was also known for her calypso music which she often performed at night clubs between acting stints. Though she left the acting business for about six years in the 1960s, she returned in the 1970s, performing on stage and in television in roles on popular programs such as The Jeffersons and A Different World. [Information from Encyclopedia.com].

William Primrose (August 23, 1904 – May 1, 1982) was a Scottish violist and teacher. His father was a violin teacher and Scottish Orchestra member, and Primrose began practicing violin from an early age. He performed his first concert at age 12. His family moved to London in 1919 and Primrose studied violin at the Guildhall School of Music and graduated with the highest honor in 1924. He moved to Belgium to study under Eugène Ysaÿe, who recommend that Primrose transition to the viola. In 1930, he played viola for the London String Quartet. The group toured North and South America in the from 1930 till they disbanded in 1935. In 1937, Primrose became a violist for Arturo Toscanini’s NBC symphony orchestra. In 1939, NBC suggested that Primrose form his own group and he formed the Primrose Quartet. In 1941, Primrose began touring with Richard Crooks, going on five tours in four years. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 in recognition of his musical contributions. Primrose was also a teacher during his violist career. He taught in many countries across the world, including the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He taught at the University of Southern California from 1961 to 1965 with Jascha Heifetz. After teaching at USC, he moved to the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where he remained from 1965 to 1972. In 1971, Primrose went to the Tokyo University of the Arts and the Toho Gakuen School of Music. He occasionally taught at Juilliard School, Eastman School of Music and the Sydney Conservatory, In Australia, Richard Tognetti was one of his students. Primrose was a guest lecturer at Brigham Young University from 1979 to 1982. Primrose wrote and contributed to several books on viola playing: Art and Practice of Scale Playing (1954), Technique is Memory (1960), Violin and Viola with Yehudi Menuhin and Denis Stevens (1976), and Playing the Viola (1988). The Primrose International Viola Competition, created in 1979 in honor of William Primrose, was the first international music competition for viola players.

Joseph Maurice Ravel (March 7, 1875 – December 28, 1937) was a French composer, pianist, and conductor. In 1889, he entered the Paris Conservatoire at age 14, where he remained until 1905. During this period, he composed some of his best-known works, including the Pavane for a Dead Princess, the Sonatine for Piano, and the String Quartet. In 1928 Ravel embarked on a four months’ tour of Canada and the United States and in the same year visited England to receive an honorary degree of Doctor of Music from Oxford. He was reclusive for most of his life in his French countryside home. He continued composing until the last five years of his life as he suffered from aphasia.

Paul Leroy Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, and political activist. He was the third African American student to attend Rutgers University with a scholarship and received top honors. From 1920 to 1923 he attended Columbia University Law School. After briefly working in law, he started acting after experiencing racism in his law firm. Robeson performed as the lead in the controversial 1924 production of All God's Chillun Got Wings in New York City, and the following year, he starred in the London staging of The Emperor Jones—both by playwright Eugene O'Neill. Robeson's first film was African American director Oscar Micheaux's 1925 work Body and Soul. Through his involvement with the 1928 London production of Show Boat, he found his signature song "Ol’ Man River." In the late 1920s, Robeson and his family relocated to Europe, where he continued to establish himself as an international star through big-screen features such as Borderline (1930). A beloved international figure with a huge following in Europe, Robeson regularly spoke out against racial injustice and was involved in world politics. He supported Pan-Africanism, sang for Loyalist soldiers during Spain's civil war, took part in anti-Nazi demonstrations, and performed for Allied forces during World War II. Due to Robeson’s favorable relationship with the U.S.S.R., he was ultimately barred by the State Department from renewing his passport in 1950 to travel abroad for engagements. Despite his immense popularity, he was blacklisted from domestic concert venues, recording labels and film studios, and suffered financially. Robeson published his autobiography Here I Stand in 1958, the same year that he won the right to have his passport reinstated. He again traveled internationally and received several accolades for his work. Robeson and his family returned to the United States in 1963. [Information from Biography.com]

Bill Robinson (May 25, 1878 – November 25, 1949) was an African American dancer on Broadway and in Hollywood who was also known as Bojangles. He began dancing as a child for money, which led to a career in vaudeville. Robinson went on to become a star of black musical comedies, later a top vaudeville star, and finally a star of motion pictures, appearing in 14 films, notably The Little Colonel (1935), In Old Kentucky (1935), The Littlest Rebel (1935), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938), and Just Around the Corner (1938). He also appeared in the wartime all-black musical film Stormy Weather (1943). His best-known films were those where he danced alongside Shirley Temple. Robinson was best known for his tap-dance routines. He pioneered a new form of tap, shifting from a flat-footed style to a light, swinging style that focused on elegant footwork.

Lisa Roma (February 29, 1892–February 17, 1965) was an American soprano. Although she began a professional career as an accountant, she became a soloist for the Philadelphia Choral Society which led to her studying music. In 1920, she made her feature debut as a substitute in Naughty Marietta when the main singer became ill. This sparked her career in voice. When singing in Washington, D.C. with Beniamino Gigli, she was invited to sing in the White House. Traveling to Germany, she was engaged at the Berlin State Opera, where, once again, the scheduled star was sick, and Roma was asked to sing in her place in the role of Mimi in Puccini's La Boheme. She was engaged as a guest artist for the 1925 season. In 1930, she made a tour of Europe "as interpreter for the famous French composer, Maurice Ravel." She was granted a master’s degree in music in 1930 by the University of Southern California, and in the fall, she was appointed to the new chair of grand opera in the USC Department of Music. From 1958 to 1961, she was the owner and publisher of the Musical Courier magazine and was the author of three books about singing.

Antonio Ruiz Soler (November 4, 1921 – February 6, 1996) was a Spanish flamenco dancer, choreographer, and dance director. His partnership with Florencia Perez Padilla was billed as Rosario y Antonio and lasted from 1928 to 1952. The act earned international acclaim. From 1937 to 1949, they performed throughout North and South America both on stage and in films. A disagreement led to the end of the act in 1952. In 1953 he formed his own Spanish ballet company, Antonio y los Ballets de Madrid. In 1980, he became artistic director of the Spanish National Ballet but was dismissed in 1983 for "indiscipline" by a new overall director appointed by the incoming Socialist government. The Supreme Court annulled the dismissal in 1989 and said he could stay on until his contract ran out three months later.

Florencia Perez Padilla (1918 – January 24, 2000) was a Spanish dancer. She was known by her stage name Rosario in the act Rosario y Antonio with Antonio Ruiz Soler. After their initial partnership at the dance academy “Realito,” the act performed throughout Seville until their debut at the International Dog Show in Liège, Belgium in 1928. After the act’s end in 1952, Rosario began performing solo. In 1962, she briefly reunited with Antonio as a guest artist with his dance company for three years. Starting in the 1970s, she opened a dance academy and performed in public sparingly.

Manuel Rosenthal (June 18, 1904 – June 5, 2003) was a French composer and conductor who held leading positions with musical organizations in France and America. He began his conducting career in 1934 as percussionist and assistant conductor of the Orchestre National de France. As his career was taking off, he became a corporal in the 300th infantry regiment during World War II. After being held in a POW camp, he returned to Paris to serve in the Resistance. Upon the Liberation of Paris in 1944, he returned to the Orchestre National de France to become their principal conductor, a post he held until 1947. In early 1946, Rosenthal's first conductorship in the USA was with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Having accepted the post of composer-in-residence at the College of Puget Sound, he was invited to become music director of the Seattle Symphony, which he conducted from 1948–1951. After various international conducting positions, Rosenthal made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in February 1981. He returned to Seattle in 1986 to conduct Richard Wagner's Ring cycle at the Seattle Opera.

Davis Rubinoff (September 3, 1897 – October 6, 1986) was a Russian violinist. He was studying music at the Royal Conservatory of Warsaw in 1911 when he met the late composer Victor Herbert, who brought the entire Rubinoff family to Pittsburgh. He attended Forbes School in Pittsburgh and became the leader of its orchestra. He worked part-time in a cafe where he played his violin and also sold newspapers on the streets. Rubinoff eventually became a soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony and went on to guest conduct orchestras in the U.S. and abroad. His big break came when he got a job as a regular conductor and soloist at the Paramount in New York City. After Rudy Vallee saw him, Rubinoff signed a contract with the Cantor Show. He performed at the White House for presidents Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. He was well-known for playing a 1731 Romanoff Stradivarius violin.

Reah Sadowsky (1915 – 2012) was a Russian American pianist. She started playing and performing as a child, giving her debut recital at the Scottish Rite Auditorium in 1929 at age 14. She was accepted into the Curtis Institute to study piano. Sadowsky and her mother moved to New York to continue her education with Alberto Jonás. She then studied at the Julliard School. She traveled to London and won a contract for six programs with the BBC and a recital at Wigmore Hall. During the 1940’s in New York, she gave recitals at Town Hall and Carnegie Hall. She was a soloist with the Boston Symphony and Denver Symphony. When she married Spanish professor Rand Morton, she moved frequently and served extended residencies at various universities. She also toured with the U.S. State Department Cultural Exchange Program. After Sadowsky and her husband moved to Berkeley in 1980, following his retirement, she focused her teaching activity on selected pianists who came to her for guidance. She gave performances in occasional recitals and periodically, on the bimonthly recitals of the Berkeley Piano Club of which she was a member for 31 years, and its president in 1990-1991.

Balduína "Bidú" de Oliveira Sayão (May 11, 1902 – March 12, 1999) was a Brazilian opera soprano. In 1925, Sayao made her opera debut at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She moved to Rome and made extensive concert tours in Europe and South America. In 1930, she debuted at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, and in the next year she sang Juliette in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette at the Paris Opera. In the same year, she gained a great success with her debut at the Opéra Comique as Lakmé. She soon became one of the leading lyric coloratura sopranos in Europe. Sayão made her U.S. debut in a recital at Town Hall in New York City on December 30, 1935. Her U.S. operatic debut followed on January 21, 1936, when she and Danise sang in the penultimate production of the Washington National Opera, a semi-professional company not associated with the contemporary organization. She sang her first performance at the Metropolitan Opera as Manon on February 13, 1937. She remained at the Met for 16 seasons during which she sang 12 roles and retired in 1952. For the next two years she was a guest performer throughout the U.S., but in 1957 she decided to retire completely from public performance. In 2000, the Bidu Sayão International Vocal Competition was established to promote Brazilian operatic talent through a world-class competition.

Hazel Dorothy Scott (June 11, 1920 – October 2, 1981) was a Trinidadian-born jazz and classical pianist, singer, and actor. In 1924, Scott, along with her mother and grandmother, moved to the Harlem, New York from Trinidad to pursue opportunities for her musical talent. At 8 years old, she auditioned for Julliard and earned a special scholarship and instruction from the school director Walter Damrosch. After high school, she made her Broadway debut in Sing Out the News. Commercial recordings of her “Bach to Boogie” repertoire on the Signature and Decca labels would break sales records nationwide. She was one of the first black entertainers to refuse to play before segregated audiences. She performed in five major motion pictures in the early ‘40s, including I Dood It, the Gershwin biopic Rhapsody in Blue, and The Heat’s On starring Mae West. She consistently called for equitable treatment for black actors by film studios, which curtailed her film career. In 1945, she married preacher and politician Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. She focused on her role as a politician’s wife however she still performed concerts nationally when Powell traveled to Washington, D.C. In 1950, she starred in The Hazel Scott Show as the first black performer to host her own nationally syndicated television show. However, accusations from the United States government of her supposed communist leanings resulted in the cancellation of her show. After divorcing her husband, she moved with her son to Paris, France. On a brief visit to the States in 1955, she recorded Relaxed Piano Moods with Charlie Mingus and Max Roach on the Debut label, an album now considered by jazz critics and aficionados as one of the most important jazz recordings of the twentieth century. She returned to the United States and performed until her death in 1981 from pancreatic cancer. [Information from Smithsonian Magazine].

Uday Shankar (December 8, 1900 – September 1977) was an Indian dancer and choreographer who was well-known for creating a fusion of European theater techniques and Indian classical dance, which was popular in India, Europe, and the United States in the 1920’s and 1930’s. After collaborating with ballerina Anna Pavlova on the Radha-Krishna ballet, which combined ballet and Hindu artistic themes, he began to form a style of dance called “hi-dance.” In 1931, Shankar formed Europe’s first Indian dance company, “Uday Shankar and his Hindu Ballet.” They subsequently toured Europe and the United States under impresarios Sol Hurok and Aaron Richmond. Shankar performed in the United States for the first time in January 1933 in New York City, along with his dance partner Simkie, a French dancer. After, Shankar and his troupe set out on an 84-city tour throughout the country. The company appeared regularly in the United States for more than 30 years.

Lajos Shuk was a Hungarian cellist. He made his debut in Berlin and toured Europe. In 1920, the Lentz Quartet brought Shuk to the United States to tour, performing as a soloist for orchestras across the country. He returned to Europe in 1932 and studied conducting, leading the Arad, Romania Philharmonic Orchestra. He returned to the United States in 1934 to conduct in New York City. He was the musical director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra for the 1935-1936 season. He continued conducting for musical groups nationally.

Simone Barbier was a French woman who danced with Uday Shankar under the name Simkie. Barbier was initially a pianist. She joined Shankar in 1926, where he taught her Indian dance and she scored Shankar’s music in western notation. She toured with Shankar’s dance group and became his dance partner. She later left the group and returned to France.

Born Mia Čorak in Austria-Hungary (now Croatia) in 1916, Mia Slasvenska (February 20, 1916 – October 5, 2002) made her debut in Baranović's ballet Licitarsko srce in 1924, at what is today the Croatian National Theatre. She became the prima ballerina of the Zagreb Opera at the age of 17. At the 1936 Berlin dance Olympics, coinciding with the Olympic games, she won the choreography and dance award. She began dancing in Vienna. She moved to the U.S. in the late 1930’s as the leading ballerina of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Her own company, Ballet Variante, was formed in 1944 in Hollywood. Her greatest roles she achieved with the Slavenska Franklin Ballet Company that she founded with Frederic Franklin in 1950. One of her most highly regarded roles was as Blanche DuBois in Valerie Bettis' modern choreography of A Streetcar Named Desire, premiered in Her Majesty's Theatre in Montreal in 1952. She became the prima ballerina of the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1954 – 55. She opened a ballet studio in New York in 1960, then taught at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1969 to 1983 and concurrently at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) from 1970-83.

Oscar Nathan Straus (March 6, 1870 – January 11, 1954) was a Viennese composer of operettas, film scores, and songs. Straus studied in Vienna and with Max Bruch in Berlin and became a theatre conductor in Austria and Germany. In 1900, he returned to Berlin, where he was engaged to conduct in and compose for Count von Wolzogen's Überbrettl cabaret. Straus returned to Vienna and produced operettas in 1927 he moved to Paris, then in 1930 resettled in the United States, where he wrote several film scores. Then it was back to France, where he became a citizen in 1939 and was awarded the Légion d'Honneur. He was in New York City and Hollywood between 1940 and 1948 and then returned to Europe. All this time, he toured as a guest conductor, made recordings, and continued to compose, although his operetta output dropped off after the 1930s. His most well-known work is The Chocolate Soldier (1908), an operetta based on George Bernard Shaw’s play Arms and the Man. [Information from All Music].

Edwin Strawbridge was a dancer and choreographer who directed ballet performances for children during the 1930’s.

Gladys Swarthout (December 25, 1900 – July 7, 1969) was an American mezzo-soprano opera singer and actress. She grew up in Missouri and studied voice at the Clark Conservatory of Music in Chicago. After her studies, she worked for the Vienna Opera Company in Highland Park, Chicago. She also studied at the Metropolitan Junior College in Missouri and the Bush Conservatory of Music in Chicago. She earned a contract at the Chicago Civic Opera and performed in many roles that season. She sang for the Ravinia Opera Company of Chicago for three seasons. In 1929, she made her debut with the New York Metropolitan Opera Company, where she was a participant for several decades. Paramount Pictures starred her in five films, including "Rose of the Rancho" and "Romance in the Dark." She was honored with the degree of Doctor of Music, is the only woman to have sung for the entire assembled Congress of the United States, plus the Diplomatic Corps, Supreme Court and the President on the occasion of the 150th session of Congress. On the radio she was often heard on many of the most important radio programs, including those of General Motors, RCA-Magic Key, Camel Caravan, the Ford Symphony, and the Prudential Family Hour. She left public life around 1954. After her open-heart surgery in 1956, her and her husband Frank Chapman moved to La Ragnaia, Italy. [Information from SwarthoutFamily.org].

John Charles Thomas (September 6, 1891 – December 13, 1960) was an American opera, operetta, and concert baritone. He attended the Peabody Institute in Baltimore starting in 1910 studying voice. In 1912, Thomas left the Peabody and toured briefly with a musical troupe. He then went to live in Manhattan, New York City, where he performed with a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta company before being contracted by the Shubert brothers to perform in the show The Peasant Girl, which opened in March 1913. For the next nine years, he starred in a series of hit Broadway musicals. Thomas sang in a concert performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Sadko at Manhattan's Carnegie Hall in December 1924. His debut in a fully-staged opera occurred in March 1925, as Amonasro in a production of Verdi's Aida, presented by the semi-professional Washington National Opera. From 1922 to 1928, he studied voice seasonally in Europe; he also performed at the La Monnaie opera house in Brussels from 1925 to 1927. During the 1920’s, Thomas gave recitals in the United States. In 1923, he starred in the silent film Under the Red Robe. He began performing on the radio and was a member of the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company from 1929 to 1932. He performed with opera companies nationally and was engaged with the Metropolitan Opera company from 1934 to 1943. From 1943 to 1946, he performed on the Westinghouse Radio Program with the Victor Young Orchestra. Thomas was among the founders of the Music Academy of the West summer conservatory in 1947. He retired bit by bit from the concert stage after 1950, and settled in Apple Valley, California in 1955 with his wife Dorothy.

Lawrence Mervil Tibbett (November 16, 1896 – July 15, 1960) was a famous American opera singer, film actor, and radio personality. Tibbett studied in New York City with Frank La Forge and signed with the Metropolitan Opera in 1923. He first achieved national recognition playing Ford in Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff. During the 1930s, Tibbett toured Europe and Australia, performing on stage or giving recitals. In the early 1930s, Tibbett also appeared in movies. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his first film, The Rogue Song, a 1930 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production. In 1936, he founded the American Guild of Musical Artists with Jascha Heifetz, the most important labor union for solo performing artists. He was the guild's proactive president for 17 years. In the early 1950’s, he performed in musicals and plays. In later years, Tibbett served as host of a radio show featuring recordings of operatic singers.

Jennie Tourel (June 22, 1900 – November 23, 1973) was a Russian American operatic mezzo-soprano. Born in the Russian Empire, Tourel’s family moved to Paris where she began studying voice. Tourel made her European opera debut at the Opéra Russe in Paris in 1931, and subsequently sang at the Opéra-Comique in Paris as Carmen in 1933. She sang with the Opéra-Comique for the next decade. She made her American début at the Chicago Civic Opera in Ernest Moret's Lorenzaccio in 1930. She fled Europe during the German invasion and emigrated to the United States in 1940; she became a citizen in 1946. She began singing with orchestras in the United States. Tourel made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera House singing Adalgisa to Zinka Milanov’s Norma. She also sang Mignon at the old Met. In later years, Jennie Tourel devoted herself to recitals and orchestra engagements, excelling particularly in French repertoire. She also taught at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, the Aspen School of Music in Colorado, the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, and the Sanuel Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. Her last opera performance was as Doña Marta in the world premiere of Thomas Pasatieri's Black Widow at the Seattle Opera in 1972.

Helen Francesca Traubel (June 16, 1899 – July 28, 1972) was an American opera and concert singer. Traubel made her concert debut in 1925 with the St. Louis Symphony. She toured Midwestern and Southern cities with the orchestra, sang with the New York Philharmonic in 1926, and later sang a concert series with the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 1937, Walter Damrosch invited her to create the role of Mary Rutledge in his opera The Man Without a Country, which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera. For the next two years she continued her training in New York while singing frequently on the radio. She made her New York concert debut at Town Hall in October 1939, and she made her debut in the Met’s regular season as Sieglinde in Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre in December 1939. Traubel became the Met’s leading Wagnerian soprano in 1941. During this time, she also sang with the Chicago City Opera Company from 1927 to 1939 and the Chicago Opera Company from 1940 to 1946. She made several national and European concert tours and was a popular recording artist. She also sang frequently on radio and television and in nightclubs. In addition to singing, she privately published her first book, a mystery entitled The Ptomaine Canary, in 1950; her second novel, The Metropolitan Opera Murders, appeared in 1951. In 1953, Traubel resigned from her Metropolitan Opera contract due to a dispute with their manager about appearing in nightclubs. She subsequently appeared on Broadway in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Pipe Dream (1955) and in several motion pictures. Her autobiography, St. Louis Woman, written with R.G. Hubler, appeared in 1959. [Information from Encyclopedia Britannica].

Patricia Travers (December 5, 1927 – February 9, 2010) was an American violin child prodigy and actress. Travers began violin lessons at age four which led to her first public performance at age six in the Music Mountain Festival. She later performed on CBS radio 'Ford Sunday Hour' show when she was nine. She soloed with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at age ten where she played Symphonie Espagnole. She appeared in the 1941 film There's Magic in Music. She performed extensively from 1941 to 1951. One of her final works was a recorded performance of Charles Ives'Sonata No.2 for Violin and Piano along with the first recording of Roger Sessions' Duo for Violin and Piano (1942) for Columbia Records. She owned the 1732 'Tom Taylor' Stradivarius from 1938 to 1954. She also used a 1733 Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù violin. At 23 years old, she withdrew from public life completely.

Victor Babin (December 13, 1908– March 1, 1972) was born in Moscow, Russia. He and his wife Vitya Vronsky (August 22, 1909 – June 28, 1992) performed as Vronsky & Babin and were regarded by many as one of the foremost piano duos of the twentieth century. Vronsky & Babin were introduced to American audiences through their recordings of the piano music of Sergei Rachmaninoff, who became their friend and mentor. Despite a break from performance during World War II, during which Babin served in the armed forces and Vronsky worked with war casualties in hospitals, the duo still managed to perform over 1,200 concerts in North America alone. In 1961, Babin became Director of the Cleveland Institute of Music, where both he and Vronsky served on the Institute’s faculty. Babin also composed a Concerto for Two Pianos. His other works included a Capriccio for orchestra, a Konzertstück for violin and orchestra, a string quartet, a Sonata–Fantasia for cello and piano, and the solo piano works Fantasia, Aria and Capriccio and Deux Mouvements dansantes. For two pianos, he wrote Six Studies, Three Fantasies on Old Themes, and Three March Rhythms. Babin died in 1972, and wife Vronsky continued to teach and perform until her death in 1992. [Information from Steinway.com].

Frances Yeend (January 28, 1913 – April 27, 2008) was an American classical soprano. Born Frances Leone Lynch in Vancouver, Washington, Yeend grew up in Portland, Oregon. She had very little musical training before entering Washington State University (then Washington State College) in Pullman, Washington where she studied singing. Following several years of college, she worked as a music teacher for a few years, during which time she also sang as a recitalist and on the radio. She also made her professional opera début during this time as Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci in Spokane, Washington. Yeend's first New York appearances were in 1943 as a member of the ensemble in the Broadway run of The Merry Widow at the Majestic Theatre. Around this time, she also sang on network radio as an uncredited soloist with Phil Spitalny and His All-Girl Orchestra. She joined Columbia Artists Management (CAM) in 1944 and performed the role of Micaela in a U.S tour of Bizet's Carmen that autumn. She had a long and fruitful association with the New York City Opera between 1948 and 1958, after which she joined the roster of principal sopranos at the Metropolitan Opera where she sang between 1961 and 1963. She also had an extensive concert career, particularly in the United States. By 1963 she had sung in more than 200 orchestral concerts in North American with major symphonies. Yeend retired from the stage in 1966 when she joined the faculty of West Virginia University as Professor of Voice/Artist in Residence. She remained in that position until 1978 when she retired from teaching.

Vera Zorina (January 2, 1917 – April 9, 2003), born Eva Brigitta Hartwig, was a Norwegian ballerina, theatre and film actress, and choreographer. Although born in Germany, Zorina’s parents were Norwegian. She began dancing professionally as a small child and at the age of 12 was in a Max Reinhardt production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Berlin. In 1933 she joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, appearing at Covent Garden in London and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She then turned to musical comedy and appeared in London’s West End in Samuel Goldwyn’s 1937 production of On Your Toes. Goldwyn then put her into his 1938 film, The Goldwyn Follies. She also played the lead in I Married An Angel on Broadway. The following year, she appeared in the film version of On Your Toes and was then on Broadway for Louisiana Purchase (1940), making the film version in 1941. Other films she made were Star Spangled Rhythm (1942) and Follow The Boys (1944). In 1938, Zorina married ballet choreographer George Balanchine. Divorced in 1946, Zorina planned to return to ballet but met with limited success and after appearing in a 1954 Broadway revival of On Your Toes made few more public performances. In 1946, Zorina married Goddard Lieberson, president of Columbia Records. After, she rarely appeared in public, sometimes working as a narrator for works of contemporary classical music. She moved to New Mexico and was director of operatic productions in Santa Fe. In the 1970’s, she was director of the Norwegian Opera. She also produced records for Columbia (CBS), under the name Brigitta Lieberson, before going into retirement. [Information from AllMusic.com].