Murray Goldberg (born October, 1962) is a noted Canadian educational technologist and a faculty member in the department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver Canada. Goldberg is best known for being the founder of the elearning companies WebCT, Brainify, Silicon Chalk, AssociCom, and Marine Learning Systems. Goldberg was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and raised in Edmonton until he moved to British Columbia to attend the University of Victoria in 1980. Murray graduated from UVic in 1985 and then went on to earn an MSc from the University of British Columbia. In 2004 he was awarded an honorary Ph.D. from the Southern Cross University. Murray serves as director for various companies, public and private, and is a frequent consultant and speaker on the future of eLearning and social learning. Murray is also the chair of the British Columbia chapter of the Manning Innovation Awards.

Murray began as a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science at UBC in 1993 and was awarded tenure there in 1998. In 1994, his first year as a faculty member at UBC, Goldberg won the Killiam Teaching Prize at UBC. Goldberg took a leave of absence from UBC in 1998 to lead WebCT full time.

Murray Perahia KBE (born April 19, 1947) is an American concert pianist and conductor.

Murray Perahia was born in the Bronx borough of New York City to a family of Sephardi Jewish origin. According to the biography on his Mozart piano sonatas CD, his first language was Judaeo-Spanish or, Ladino. The family came from Thessaloniki, Greece. His father moved to the United States in 1935.

Perahia began studying the piano at age four with a teacher he says was "very limiting" because she made him play a single piece until it was perfect. He says his musical interests blossomed at age 15 for reasons he can't explain, and he began to practice seriously. At 17, Perahia attended Mannes College, where he studied keyboard, conducting, and composition with his teacher and mentor Mieczysław Horszowski. During the summer, he also attended Marlboro, where he studied with musicians Rudolf Serkin, Alexander Schneider, and Pablo Casals, among others. He played duets for piano four hands with Serkin, who later made Perahia his assistant at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, a position he held for over a year.

David Dubal (born Cleveland, Ohio) is an American pianist, teacher, author, broadcaster and painter.

Dubal has taught at the Juilliard School in New York since 1983 and the Manhattan School of Music since 1994. Mr. Dubal is the host of "The Piano Matters" a program of comparative piano performances that can be heard on WWFM-FM and wwfm.org and other U.S. radio stations. He was the host of a weekly radio show on WQXR-FM, entitled "Reflections from the Keyboard" until the radio station was sold to WNYC-FM. He is the author of several books, including The Art of the Piano, Evenings With Horowitz, and The Essential Canon of Classical Music, an encyclopaedic guide to the prominent composers of the Western canon. Dubal wrote and hosted The Golden Age of Piano, an Emmy Award winning documentary, produced by Peter Rosen.

Dubal has also performed recitals, master classes and lectures worldwide, and judged international competitions, including the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Ludwig van Beethoven (ⁱ/ˈlʊdvɪɡ væn ˈbeɪt.hoʊvən/; German pronunciation: [ˈluːtvɪç fan ˈbeːt.hoːfən] ( listen); baptized 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers.

Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven moved to Vienna in his early 20s, studying with Joseph Haydn and quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. His hearing began to deteriorate in his late twenties, yet he continued to compose, conduct, and perform, even after becoming completely deaf.

Beethoven was the grandson of a musician of Flemish origin named Lodewijk van Beethoven (1712–73) who moved at the age of twenty to Bonn. Lodewijk (Ludwig is the German cognate of Dutch Lodewijk) was employed as a bass singer at the court of the Elector of Cologne, eventually rising to become Kapellmeister (music director). Lodewijk had one son, Johann (1740–1792), who worked as a tenor in the same musical establishment, and gave lessons on piano and violin to supplement his income. Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich in 1767; she was the daughter of Johann Heinrich Keverich, who had been the head chef at the court of the Archbishopric of Trier.