Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C (F₃ in scientific pitch notation) to the second G above middle C (G₅), although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C (E₃) or the second B♭ above middle C (B♭₅).

"Contralto" is meaningful only in reference to classical and operatic singing, as other genres lack a system of vocal categorization comparable to that generally accepted in the classical context. Even within current operatic practice, contraltos are often classed as mezzo-sopranos, because singers in each range can cover for those in the other. When appearing separately, the term "contralto" applies only to female singers; men whose voices fall in the same range or higher are known as "countertenors." The Italian terms "contralto" and "alto" are not synonymous, the latter technically denoting a specific vocal range in choral singing without regard to factors like tessitura, vocal timbre, vocal facility, and vocal weight.

Eula Beal (January 25, 1919 – July 29, 2008) was an American contralto. During her relatively short touring career, she performed with distinguished collaborators not only in concert on the US West Coast but also in Concert Magic, a 1947 film billed as "the first motion picture concert."

Beal was born in Riverside, California. Touring the United States as a concert contralto in the 1940s, she appeared with orchestras including the Phoenix Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. With the latter ensemble, she performed in two works by Gustav Mahler: his Eighth Symphony, under Eugene Ormandy at the Hollywood Bowl, and Kindertotenlieder. Beal's operatic appearances included impersonations of Erda in Wagner's Siegfried and the innkeeper in Boris Godunov with the San Francisco Opera during the 1948 season. She also sang at Radio City Music Hall and the Tanglewood Festival with the Boston Pops.

Beal's present fame rests on her participation in Concert Magic, an unscripted film presenting, as the title would suggest, a classical concert. Beal was the sole vocalist; instrumentalists included pianists Adolph Baller, Jakob Gimpel, and Marguerite Campbell; violinist Yehudi Menuhin; and an orchestra billed as "Symphony Orchestra of Hollywood" under the baton of Antal Dorati. Interspersed with purely instrumental selections, Beal performed the Bach-Gounod "Ave Maria"; Franz Schubert's "Erlkönig" and "Ave Maria"; Tchaikovsky's "None but the lonely heart"; and "Lord, Have Mercy on Me" from the St. Matthew Passion of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Nathalie Stutzmann is a contemporary opera singer, renowned for her contralto voice.

Born in Suresnes, France, 1965, she first studied with her mother (soprano Christiane Stutzmann), then at Nantes Conservatoire and later, at the Ecole d’Art Lyrique de l’Opéra de Paris, focusing on lied, under Hans Hotter's tutelage. She is well known for her interpretations of French melody and German lied. Her oeuvre includes major works of baroque, classical, romantic and 20th century music. Stutzmann also plays piano, bassoon and is a chamber musician. Stutzmann debuted as a concert singer at the Salle Pleyel, Paris, 1985, in Bach's Magnificat (BWV 243). Her recital debut was the following year in Nantes. Some of her operatic performances have included: Ombra felice (Mozart's pasticcio), Radamisto (Handel), Orfeo ed Euridice (Gluck) and Giulio Cesare (Handel). She has sung at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Royal Festival Hall / “BBC Proms”, Carnegie Hall, Musikverein, Mozarteum, the Concertgebouw, La Monnaie, the Suntory Hall in Tokyo, La Scala, the Opéra de Genève and the Berliner Philharmonie.

Karen J. Clark (born July 23, 1945) is a Minnesota politician, and a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. A Democrat, Clark represents District 61A, which includes portions of the city of Minneapolis in the Twin Cities metropolitan area including portions of the Phillips, Ventura Village, Seward, and Lyn-Lake neighborhoods. She is the longest serving openly lesbian member to serve in a state legislature in the United States.

First elected in November 1980, Clark is serving her sixteenth term in the Minnesota Legislature. She is currently a member of the Capital Investment, the Jobs and Economic Development Finance, and the Redistricting committees. Since first being elected, she has chaired the Governmental Operations Subcommittee for Jobs Creation and Unemployment Issues, the Economic Development and Housing Subcommittee for Job Development and Training, the Economic Development Subcommittee for the Community Stabilization and Development Division, the Housing Committee, the Economic Development and International Trade Subcommittee for the Housing and Housing Finance Division, and the Finance Subcommittee for the Housing Policy and Finance and Public Health Finance Division.

Kathleen Mary Ferrier, CBE (22 April 1912 – 8 October 1953) was an English contralto who achieved an international reputation as a stage, concert and recording artist, with a repertoire extending from folksong and popular ballads to the classical works of Bach, Brahms, Mahler and Elgar. Her death from cancer, at the height of her fame, was a shock to the musical world and particularly to the general public, which was kept in ignorance of the nature of her illness until after her death. She was especially known in Britain for her unaccompanied recording of the Northumbrian folk tune "Blow the Wind Southerly", which was played regularly on BBC Radio for many years after her death.

The daughter of a Lancashire village schoolmaster, Ferrier showed early talent as a pianist, and won numerous amateur piano competitions while working as a telephonist with the General Post Office. She did not take up singing seriously until 1937, when after winning a prestigious singing competition at the Carlisle Festival she began to receive offers of professional engagements as a vocalist. Thereafter she took singing lessons, first with J.E. Hutchinson and later with Roy Henderson. After the outbreak of the Second World War Ferrier was recruited by the Council for the Encouragement of [Music and] the Arts (CEMA), and in the following years sang at concerts and recitals throughout England. In 1942 her career was boosted when she met the conductor Malcolm Sargent, who recommended her to the influential Ibbs and Tillett concert management agency. She became a regular performer at leading London and provincial venues, and made numerous BBC radio broadcasts.