Norman Arthur Stillman, also Noam (נועם, in Hebrew), b. 1945, is the Schusterman-Josey Professor and Chair of Judaic History at the University of Oklahoma. He specializes in the intersection of Jewish and Islamic culture and history, and in Oriental and Sephardi Jewry, with special interest in the Jewish communities in North Africa. His major publications are The Jews of Arab Lands: a History And Source Book and Sephardi Religious Responses to Modernity. In the last few years, Stillman has been the executive editor of the Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, a project that includes over 2000 entries in 5 volumes. It will be published by Brill in 2010.^{[citation needed]}

Stillman studied at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving the B.A. (magna cum laude) in 1967 and Ph.D. in Oriental Studies in 1970, Shelomo Dov Goitein being his thesis advisor. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He has received numerous academic honors, among them the Phi Beta Kappa, the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching and the SUNY-Binghamton award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. He delivered the Momigliano Lectures for the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought and the Sherman Lectures for the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He was Lady Davis Fellow at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1994-1995 and visiting fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel-Aviv University. He received the Ohio State University Melton Center's Distinguished Humanist award in 2000 and was a visiting scholar at l'Institut National des Langues et Civilisation Orientales in Paris in 2001-2002. Stillman also appears in the 2005 film, The Hebrew Project.

John Frederick Lange, Jr. (born June 3, 1931), better known under his pen name John Norman, is a professor of philosophy and an author. He is best known for his Gor novel series.

John Lange was born in Chicago, Illinois to John Frederick Lange and Almyra D. Lange née Taylor.

He began his academic career in the early 1950s, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Nebraska in 1953, and his Master of Arts degree from the University of Southern California in 1957. While at USC he married Bernice L. Green on January 14, 1956. The couple has three children: John, David, and Jennifer.

Lange earned his Ph.D. in 1963 from Princeton University. His dissertation was named: "In defence of ethical naturalism: an examination of certain aspects of naturalistic fallacy, with particular attention to the logic of an open question argument". Lange summed it up in an interview by saying "if one cannot make sense of morality within some sort of satisfying, natural context, then one is likely to end up with no morality, which is less than societally reassuring, or is likely to end up with a competitive plethora of moralities in which ninety-nine percent of the world's population is convinced that the other ninety-nine percent is unclean, stupid, uninformed, vicious, depraved, in need of coercive correction, and such. That too, seems less than reassuring."

Mimi Stillman is a prominent concert flutist. A Yamaha Performing Artist, she has won international acclaim as soloist with orchestras including The Philadelphia Orchestra, Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, Hilton Head Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica Carlos Chávez (Mexico City), Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Texas Brazos Valley Symphony, Orchestra 2001, Ocean City Pops, Spartanburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle, and Curtis Chamber Orchestra. She has appeared as recitalist and chamber musician at venues including The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Bard College, La Jolla Chamber Music Society, Kingston Chamber Music Festival, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Bay Chamber Concerts (ME), Verbier Festival (Switzerland), and Festival delle Nazioni (Italy).

At 12, Stillman was the youngest wind player ever admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Julius Baker and Jeffrey Khaner and received her Bachelor of Music degree in 1999. That same year she became the youngest wind player ever to win the prestigious Young Concert Artists. She has been awarded fellowships from the Earhart and Bradley Foundations, and was a member of Astral Artists. In March 2012, she was honored with the Women in the Arts award from Women for Greater Philadelphia.

George Gershwin (September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known. Among his best known works are the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris, as well as the opera Porgy and Bess.

Born in Brooklyn to a Ukrainian father of Jewish descent and a Russian mother, Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark and Henry Cowell. He began his career as a song plugger, but soon thereafter started composing Broadway theatre works with his brother Ira Gershwin and Buddy DeSylva. He moved to Paris in an attempt to study with Nadia Boulanger, where he began to compose An American in Paris. After returning to New York City, he wrote Porgy and Bess with Ira and author DuBose Heyward. Initially a commercial failure, Porgy and Bess is now considered one of the most important American operas of the Twentieth Century. Gershwin moved to Hollywood and composed numerous film scores until his death in 1937 from a brain tumor.

Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre. After a slow start, he began to achieve success in the 1920s, and by the 1930s he was one of the major songwriters for the Broadway musical stage. Unlike most successful Broadway composers, Porter wrote both the lyrics and the music for his songs.

After a serious horseback riding accident in 1937, Porter was left disabled and in constant pain, but he continued to work. His shows of the early 1940s did not contain the lasting hits of his best work of the 1920s and 30s, but in 1948 he made a triumphant comeback with his most successful musical, Kiss Me, Kate.

Porter's other musicals include Fifty Million Frenchmen, DuBarry Was a Lady, Anything Goes and Can-Can, and his numerous hit songs include "Night and Day", "I Get a Kick out of You", "Well, Did You Evah!" and "I've Got You Under My Skin". He also composed scores for films from the 1930s to the 1950s. He was noted for his sophisticated, suggestive lyrics, clever rhymes and complex forms.