Aldo Simoes Parisot (born September 30, 1921) is a Brazilian-born American cellist and cello teacher, was formerly a member of the Juilliard School faculty, and currently is serving as a professor of music at the Yale School of Music.

Born in Natal, Brazil, Parisot began studying cello at age seven with his stepfather, Tomazzo Babini. From Babini, he learned the importance of playing without unnecessary tension—something he credits as the foundation for the rest of his career. At the age of 12 he gave his professional debut as a cellist. From there, he moved on to become principal cellist of the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra in Rio de Janeiro. During one of the concerts, Carleton Sprague Smith, the attaché to the American embassy was in attendance. Upon witnessing Parisot's performance of Brahms's Double Concerto with violinist Ricardo Odnoposoff, he proceeded to come backstage, and invited Parisot to attend a party thrown for Yehudi Menuhin. At the party Smith told Parisot he would arrange for Parisot to study at the Curtis Institute of Music with Emanuel Feuermann. However, Feuermann died unexpectedly on May 25, 1942, three months before Parisot's intended arrival to the US.

Don Quixote ( /ˌdɒn kiːˈhoʊtiː/; Spanish: [ˈdoŋ kiˈxote] ( listen)), fully titled The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (Spanish: El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha), is a novel written by Miguel de Cervantes. The novel follows the adventures of Alonso Quijano, who reads too many chivalric novels, and sets out to revive chivalry under the name of Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who frequently deals with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood with a unique Earthy wit. He is met by the world as it is, initiating themes like Intertextuality, Realism, Metatheatre and Literary Representation.

Published in two volumes a decade apart, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. In one such list, Don Quixote was cited as the "best literary work ever written".

Victor de Sabata (April 10, 1892 – December 11, 1967) was an Italian conductor and composer. He is widely recognized as one of the most distinguished operatic conductors of the twentieth century, especially for his Verdi, Puccini and Wagner. He is also acclaimed for his interpretations of orchestral music. Like his near contemporary Wilhelm Furtwängler, de Sabata regarded composition as more important than conducting but achieved more lasting recognition for his conducting than his compositions. De Sabata has been praised by various authors and critics as a rival to Toscanini for the title of greatest Italian conductor of the twentieth century, and even as "perhaps the greatest conductor in the world".

De Sabata was born in the city of Trieste, at the time part of Austria-Hungary, but now in Italy. His Roman Catholic father, Amedeo de Sabata, was a professional singing teacher and chorus master, and his mother, Rosita Tedeschi, a talented amateur musician, was Jewish. De Sabata began playing the piano at the age of four, and composed a gavotte for that instrument at the age of six. He composed his first work for orchestra at the age of twelve. His formal musical studies began after his family moved to Milan around 1900. In Milan, de Sabata studied at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory, excelling at piano, violin, theory, composition and conducting, and graduating cum laude in composition, piano and violin. He would remain a virtuoso pianist and violinist up until the end of his life. In 1911 he performed in an orchestra under the baton of Arturo Toscanini who influenced him to become a conductor. De Sabata's first opera, Il macigno, was produced at the opera house of La Scala on March 31, 1917 to a mixed reception. It was frequently performed during the next few years.