Lori or Luri (Lori/Persian: لری‎, pronounced [loriː], [luriː]) is a collection of Southwestern Iranian languages which are mainly spoken by the Lurs and Bakhtiari people in the Iranian provinces of Lorestan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad and parts of Khuzestan and Esfahan province and Fars provinces. Lori is a descendant of a variant of Middle Persian and is lexically similar to modern Persian. According to the linguist Don Stillo: "Persian, Lori-Baḵtiāri and others, are derived directly from Old Persian through Middle Persian/Pahlavi". These dialects are also referred to as the “Persid” southern Zagros group. The special character of the Lori language suggests that its spreading area was Iranicized from Persia and not from Media.

Ashur Bet Sargis (Syriac: ܐܫܘܪ ܒܝܬ ܣܪܓܝܤ), (Born in 2 July 1949), is an Assyrian Composer and Singer. He became famous in the Assyrian communities worldwide for his nationalistic songs in the 1970s.

Ashur Bet Sargis was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1949 to an Assyrian family. He started playing organ as a teenager at the local Assyrian church. He later began composing nationalistic songs under the influence of established Assyrian musicians such as Evin Aghassi and King Biba, as well as western artists. As Ashur recalls of his early days in the biography written for his 4-CD set “So far”:

Shortly after the Ba'ath led revolution of 1968, Ashur fled the unstable political situation in Iraq in 1969, ending up in Chicago, IL. Two years later he formed his first band, “East Bird Band”, which released its first recording in 1973. In 1976, after relocating to Los Angeles, Ashur became the first Assyrian artist to tour overseas when he and his band played three sold-out shows in Australia. Soon afterwards he would travel to Iran, which at that time had the second largest population of Assyrians in the Middle East, and had long been a large producer of Assyrian music on the record labels that flourished in Tehran in the days before the Islamic revolution such as Irangram and Monogram. After two weeks of performances there, he returned to Los Angeles to record his second album, “Ashur Sargis Sings for Ancient Assyria”, which included re-recordings of hits from the first album like “Tanilee Lay-Lay” (“Sing Me A Lullaby”, with lyrics by Assyrian nationalist leader Freydun Atturaya) and “Bet Nahren Atrewa”, as well as several other songs that have since become staples of his catalogue and concerts.

Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television, and film. She is widely regarded as one of the most talented actors of all time.

Streep made her professional stage debut in The Playboy of Seville (1971), before her screen debut in the television movie Deadliest Season (1977). In that same year, she made her film debut with Julia (1977). Both critical and commercial success came quickly with roles in The Deer Hunter (1978) and Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), the former giving Streep her first Academy Award nomination and the latter her first win. She later won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in Sophie's Choice (1982) and The Iron Lady (2011).

Streep has received 17 Academy Award nominations, winning three, and 26 Golden Globe nominations, winning eight, more nominations than any other actor in the history of either award. Her work has also earned her two Emmy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Cannes Film Festival award, five New York Film Critics Circle Awards, two BAFTA awards, an Australian Film Institute Award, five Grammy Award nominations, and a Tony Award nomination, amongst others. She was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2004 and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2009 for her contribution to American culture through performing arts, the youngest actress in each award's history.

Beniamino Gigli (pronounced: [benjaˈmiːno ˈdʒiʎʎi]) (March 20, 1890 – November 30, 1957) was an Italian opera singer. The most famous tenor of his generation, he was renowned internationally for the great beauty of his voice and the soundness of his vocal technique. Music critics sometimes took him to task, however, for what was perceived to be the over-emotionalism of his interpretations. Nevertheless, such was Gigli's talent, he is considered to be one of the very finest tenors in the recorded history of music.

Gigli was born in Recanati, in the Marche, the son of a shoemaker who loved opera. His brother Lorenzo became a famous Italian painter.

In 1914, he won first prize in an international singing competition in Parma. His operatic debut came on October 15, 1914, when he played Enzo in Amilcare Ponchielli's La Gioconda in Rovigo, following which he was in great demand.

Gigli made many important debuts in quick succession, and always in Mefistofele: Teatro Massimo in Palermo (March 31, 1915), Teatro di San Carlo in Naples (December 26, 1915), Teatro Costanzi di Roma (December 26, 1916), La Scala, Milan (November 19, 1918), and finally the Metropolitan Opera, New York (November 26, 1920). Two other great Italian tenors present on the roster of Met singers during the 1920s also happened to be Gigli's chief contemporary rivals for tenor supremacy in the Italian repertory—namely, Giovanni Martinelli and Giacomo Lauri-Volpi.