Alfredo Antonini (May 31, 1901 – November 3, 1983) was a leading Italian/American symphony conductor and composer who was active on the international concert stage as well as on the CBS radio and television networks from the 1930s through the 1960s. In 1971 he received an Emmy Award for best musical performance on television for his conducting of the premiere of Ezra Laderman's opera And David Wept for CBS television.

Maestro Antonini was born in Milan, Italy and pursued his musical studies at the Royal Conservatory in Milan. He was a student of the legendary Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini.

During the 1940s he distinguished himself as a conductor of several leading orchestras while performing on the CBS radio network. These included: the CBS Pan American Orchestra (1940–1949), the Columbia Concert Orchestra (1940–1949) and the CBS Symphony Orchestra.

He also conducted live radio broadcasts of the popular program Viva America[1] on the CBS radio network and La Cadena de las Americas (Network of the Americas) in collaboration with such noted artists as Nestor Chayres (Mexican tenor aka "El Gitano De Mexico")[2] Terig Tucci (Argentine composer/arranger) and John Serry, Sr. (Italian-American concert accordionist). He also appeared with Nestor Chayres (tenor) at the Night of the Americas Concert series at Carnegie Hall. His performances with the Carnegie Hall Pops Orchestra at Carnegie Hall were eagerly anticipated by the general public.. Additional performances in collaboration with Juan Arvizu ("El Troubador de las Americas") and the CBS Tipica Orchestra for the Inter-America Music Fiesta at Carnegie Hall attracted widespread acclaim..

Franco Corelli (8 April 1921 – 29 October 2003) was a famous Italian tenor who had a major international opera career between 1951 and 1976. Associated in particular with the spinto and dramatic tenor roles of the Italian repertory, he was celebrated universally for his powerhouse voice, electrifying top notes, clear timbre, a very elegant and passionate singing and remarkable performances. Dubbed the "Prince of tenors", Corelli possessed handsome features and a charismatic stage presence which endeared him to audiences. He had a long and fruitful partnership with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City between 1961 and 1975. He also appeared on the stages of most of the major opera houses in Europe and with opera companies throughout North America.

Corelli was born Dario Franco Corelli in Ancona into a family many have thought to have little or no musical background. While his parents were not particularly musical, his paternal grandfather Augusto had actually quit working at 35 to establish a successful career as an operatic tenor. His older brother Aldo subsequently quit school to become an operatic baritone, and two of his uncles sang in the Teatro delle Muse chorus in Ancona. His father was a shipbuilder for the Italian navy and the family lived along the Adriatic Sea. Corelli loved the sea and initially decided to follow in the footsteps of his father by pursuing a degree in naval engineering at the University of Bologna. While studying there he entered a music competition under the dare of a friend who was an amateur singer. While he did not win the competition, he was encouraged by the judges to pursue a singing career and Corelli entered the Pesaro Conservatory of Music to study opera.

Dorothy Kirsten (July 6, 1910, Montclair, New Jersey – November 18, 1992, Los Angeles, California) was an American operatic soprano.

Kirsten's mother was an organist and music teacher, her grandfather was a conductor, and her great-aunt, Catherine Hayes, was also an opera singer. She left high school at age 16 and worked for the Singer Corporation sewing machine company and for New Jersey Bell, studying voice in her spare time. Her teacher, Louis Darnay, eventually employed her as a secretary and maid.

By the late 1930s she had an ongoing professional career as a radio singer on WINS, a member of the Kate Smith Chorus, and as a vocalist for pop orchestras. She mentored under Grace Moore from 1938, who had her study in Rome with Astolfo Pescia. Her time in Europe was cut short by the outbreak of World War II, and she returned in 1939, debuting at the New York World's Fair. Roles followed at the Chicago Grand Opera Company (Manon, 1940), San Carlo Opera Company (1942), New York City Opera (1943), San Francisco Opera (1945), and New York Philharmonic (1945). Her radio program "Keepsakes" ran for a year in 1943-44.^{[citation needed]}

Wallingford Constantine Riegger (April 29, 1885 – April 2, 1961) was a prolific American music composer, well known for orchestral and modern dance music, and film scores. He was born in Albany, Georgia, but lived much of his life in New York City. He is noted for being one of the first American composers to use a form of twelve-tone technique.

Riegger was born in 1885 to Ida Wallingford and Constantine Riegger. After his father's lumber mill burned down in 1888, his family moved to Indianapolis, and later to Louisville, finally settling in New York in 1900. A gifted cellist, he graduated from the first graduating class of the Institute of Musical Art, later known as the Juilliard School, in 1907, after studying under Percy Goetschius. He continued his studies at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin for three years. After returning in 1910, he married Rose Schramm, with whom he later had three daughters, in 1911. For a time, he returned to Germany and accepted various conducting positions, but this was interrupted by the joining of America in World War I in 1917, after which he moved back to America.

Ernest Bloch (July 24, 1880 – July 15, 1959) was a Swiss-born American composer.

Bloch was born in Geneva and began playing the violin at age 9. He began composing soon afterwards. He studied music at the conservatory in Brussels, where his teachers included the celebrated Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. He then travelled around Europe, moving to Germany (where he studied composition from 1900–1901 with Iwan Knorr at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt), on to Paris in 1903 and back to Geneva before settling in the United States in 1916, taking American citizenship in 1924. He held several teaching appointments in the U.S., with George Antheil, Frederick Jacobi, Bernard Rogers, and Roger Sessions among his pupils. In December 1920 he was appointed the first Musical Director of the newly formed Cleveland Institute of Music, a post he held until 1925. Following this he was director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music until 1930.

In 1941, Bloch moved to the small coastal community of Agate Beach, Oregon and lived there the rest of his life. He died in 1959 in Portland, Oregon, of cancer at the age of 78. The Bloch Memorial has been moved from near his house in Agate Beach to a more prominent location at the Newport Performing Arts Center in Newport, Oregon.