The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential female people in Communications,
#2651
Barbara Zeigler
#140915
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Barbara Zeigler is a Canadian visual artist with a focus in print media. She has also worked in drawing, video, installation and collaborative public art, often combining these media with her work in print to prompt questions as to the character and consequences of our existing cultural paradigms. Her artwork focuses on the evolving relationship between human culture and the ecosphere, with special consideration given to the ways in which individual and collective identity become evident through land usage. Zeigler lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Go to Profile#2652
Annette Bryn Parri
#178244
Overall Influence
Annette Bryn Parri is a Welsh pianist, best known as an accompanist to opera stars such as Bryn Terfel and Rebecca Evans. Parri appears regularly on the National Eisteddfod stage, and also at the International Eisteddfod at Llangollen.
Go to Profile#2653
Michèle Crider
#182461
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Michèle Crider is an American lirico spinto operatic soprano. She has appeared in many of the great opera house in the world including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, San Francisco Opera, Los Angeles Opera and the state operas of Vienna, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg. She has sung under Riccardo Muti, Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, James Levine, Nello Santi, Christoph von Dohnányi, Semyon Bychkov, Seiji Ozawa, Riccardo Chailly and Colin Davis. She is professor of vocal performance at the Mozarteum University Salzburg.
Go to Profile#2654
Andrée Desautels
#185964
Overall Influence
1923 - Present (103 years)
Andrée Desautels was a Canadian musician, musicologist and music educator. Early life and training The daughter of and , she was born in Montreal on 9 October 1923. Desautels studied piano with Isabelle Delorme and studied at the École supérieure de musique d'Outremont. She went on to study at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal with Germaine Malépart, Isabelle Delorme and Claude Champagne. Desautels also studied the history of art and literature at the University of Montreal. At the Conservatoire de Paris, she studied music history with Norbert Dufourcq and aesthetics with and Alexis Roland-Manuel.
Go to Profile#2655
Eva Likova
#185337
Overall Influence
1919 - 2004 (85 years)
Eva Likova was an American operatic soprano of Czech descent. She was notably one of the major sopranos at the New York City Opera during the company's early years. She also made guest appearances with a number of opera houses in North America and Europe, enjoying a particularly fruitful partnership with the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company. After retiring from the opera stage in 1966, she embarked on a second career as a voice teacher.
Go to Profile#2656
Renée Beaulieu
#190983
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Renée Beaulieu is a Canadian film director and screenwriter from Quebec, whose debut feature film Adrien was released in 2015. Originally from Trois-Pistoles, Quebec, Beaulieu worked as a pharmacist until deciding to leave her job and return to film school. She is now a professor of film studies at the Université de Montréal.
Go to Profile#2657
Alexandra Silber
#186927
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Alexandra Silber is an American actress, singer, writer and educator. She has performed roles on Broadway, in London's West End, on television and film, and concert stages. Among other stage roles, in London, she created the role of Laura Fairlie in The Woman in White , played Hodel in Fiddler on the Roof and Julie Jordan in Carousel . In New York, she appeared in Hello Again , Master Class , created the role of Sara Jane in Arlington and as Tzeitel in the Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof .
Go to Profile#2658
Marion Zarzeczna
#184197
Overall Influence
1930 - 2020 (90 years)
Marion Zarzeczna was an American concert pianist and educator. She was born and grew up in a non-musical family in Trenton, New Jersey. She received her Bachelor of Music degree in 1954 from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Mieczysław Horszowski.
Go to Profile#2659
Sylvia Meyer
#178807
Overall Influence
1907 - 2005 (98 years)
Sylvia Meyer was an American harpist who became the first female member of the National Symphony Orchestra. She was a founding member of the World Harp Congress. Early life Sylvia Meyer was born in Madison, Wisconsin, the child of Balthasar H. Meyer, an interstate commerce commissioner. She started playing the harp at age seven, choosing the instrument because her mother had bought a harp at an estate sale. She studied music at the Academy of the Holy Cross near Washington, D.C., and graduated from the Western High School in 1924. She attended the University of Wisconsin from where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa in geology.
Go to Profile#2660
Jeanne Deroubaix
#190483
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (99 years)
Jeanne Deroubaix is a Belgian mezzo-soprano, focused on concert performances of early music and contemporary music. She premiered music by Igor Stravinsky and collaborated with Pierre Boulez, first performing and recording his Le marteau sans maître.
Go to Profile#2661
Rotraud Hansmann
#187458
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Rotraud Hansmann is an Austrian soprano in opera and concert. She was a singer in the recordings by Nikolaus Harnoncourt which began historically informed performances, such as Monteverdi's operas and works by Johann Sebastian Bach. She was a teacher at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna.
Go to Profile#2662
Elisabeth Kelan
#120786
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Elisabeth Kelan is a Professor of Leadership and Organisation at Essex Business School and Director of the Cranfield International Centre for Women Leaders at Cranfield School of Management. Prior to that she was an Associate Professor in the Department of Management at King's College London and Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Women in Business at London Business School, founded by Laura D’Andrea Tyson. She also worked at the Gender Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science where she received her PhD.
Go to Profile#2663
Edith Picht-Axenfeld
#178357
Overall Influence
1914 - 2001 (87 years)
Edith Picht-Axenfeld was a German pianist and harpsichordist. Career She started her concert career in 1935, and took part two years later in the III International Chopin Piano Competition, when she was awarded the sixth prize; this launched her career. After the Second World War, Picht-Axenfeld performed at an intercontinental level, was active as a chamber musician and recorded for labels such as Deutsche Grammophon, Philips and Erato. RCA released an LP with Chopin's Études op. 10 and op. 25 with Picht-Axenfeld.
Go to Profile#2664
Judith Bettina
#173209
Overall Influence
Judith Bettina is an American soprano and music educator, particularly noted for her performances and recordings of contemporary classical music. Life and career Bettina was born in Manhattan to a violinist mother, Lilo Kantorowicz Glick, and a violist father, Jacob Glick, who was noted for his championship of new music. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from New York's Manhattan School of Music. While there she performed in the school's 1975 premiere of Wuorinen's The W. of Babylon. After graduation from the Manhattan School of Music, she sang in New York City but moved to Stanfo...
Go to Profile#2665
Carla Scaletti
#148881
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Carla Scaletti is an American harpist, composer, music technologist and the inventor of the Kyma Sound Design Environment as well as president of Symbolic Sound. Biography Carla Scaletti was born in Ithaca, New York. She graduated from the public schools in Albuquerque, New Mexico, then completed a Bachelor of Music from the University of New Mexico, a Master of Music from Texas Tech University, a master's in computer science from the University of Illinois and a doctorate in music composition from the same school. In the 1970s, she worked as principal harpist in the New Mexico Symphony Orche...
Go to Profile#2666
Irina Dubkova
#190861
Overall Influence
Irina Dubkova is a Russian composer, music teacher and an associate professor at the Moscow Conservatory. Life Irina Dubkova was born in Sverdlovsk . She began composing at the age of five. After finishing music college as a pianist in 1982, she completed the undergraduate course as a composer. She continued the same way her post-graduate studies with professor Roman Ledenyov and in musicology with Yuri Kholopov until 1987.
Go to Profile#2667
Debbie Reynolds
#188441
Overall Influence
1932 - 2016 (84 years)
Mary Frances "Debbie" Reynolds was an American actress, singer, and businesswoman. Her career spanned almost 70 years. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer with her portrayal of Helen Kane in the 1950 film Three Little Words. Her breakout role was her first leading role, as Kathy Selden in Singin' in the Rain . Her other successes include The Affairs of Dobie Gillis , Susan Slept Here , Bundle of Joy , The Catered Affair , and Tammy and the Bachelor , in which her performance of the song "Tammy" topped the Billboard music charts. In 1959, she starred in The M...
Go to Profile#2668
Clara Dent
#189411
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Clara Dent-Bogányi is an Austrian oboist and teacher. She has been a soloist with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and a teacher at the Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg, in addition to winning international competitions.
Go to Profile#2669
Elizabeth Farr
#187375
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Elizabeth Farr is an American classical harpsichordist. Biography and career Farr has degrees in harpsichord and organ performance from Stetson University, the Juilliard School and the University of Michigan. Farr has studied with Paul Jenkins, Vernon de Tar, and Edward Parmentier.
Go to Profile#2670
Leah Meyerhoff
#187399
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Leah Meyerhoff is an American Student Academy Award-nominated director, producer and screenwriter. She has received attention as the writer and director of the feature film I Believe in Unicorns starring Natalia Dyer and Peter Vack. Her films have screened in over 200 film festivals worldwide and won over a dozen international awards.
Go to Profile#2671
Cassidy
#182457
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
#2672
Mary Hammond
#190268
Overall Influence
Mary Hammond is an English singer, actress, voice coach and founding Head of Musical Theatre at the Royal Academy of Music. She has also published a book titled Thank you that's all we need for today a practical guide to musical theatre auditions for actors.
Go to Profile#2673
Judith Ingolfsson
#188473
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Judith Ingolfsson is a violinist. She plays a violin by Lorenzo Guadagnini made in 1750. Early life She began to play violin at age three, and debuted as a soloist in Germany already at age eight. She moved to the US and in her early teens she studied with Jascha Brodsky at the Curtis Institute of Music. She then studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music under David Cerone and Donald Weilerstein.
Go to Profile#2674
Florence Millet
#189103
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Florence Millet is a Franco-German classical pianist who serves as Professor of Piano and Chair of the Piano Department at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. Biography Florence Millet was born in Brussels, Belgium. She has performed across the globe in venues and festivals including Salle Pleyel, Théâtre du Châtelet, Carnegie Hall, Kölner Philharmonie, Washington Kennedy Center, Poly Theaters across China in Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Weihan, Kuhmo Festival, Kneisel Hall, Tanglewood Festival and Festival International de Piano de la Roque d'Anthéron. Millet is a founding member of the Lions Gate Trio.
Go to Profile#2675
Rose Lowder
#190332
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Rose Lowder is a French-Peruvian avant-garde filmmaker. Early life Lowder was born in the Miraflores District of Lima, Peru. She attended the San Silvestre School. Lowder studied painting and sculpture in Lima at The Art Center and the School of Fine Arts. She moved to the United States for a brief period and then to London. There, Lowder studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic, which closed before she had finished her studies, and then at the Chelsea School of Art.
Go to Profile#2676
Tannaz Farsi
#190427
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Tannaz Farsi is an Iranian-born American multidisciplinary visual artist and educator. Farsi is an Associate Professor of sculpture at the University of Oregon. She lives in Eugene, Oregon. Biography Tannaz Farsi was born in 1974 in Tehran, Pahlavi Iran. Farsi received her BFA degree from West Virginia University; and her MFA degree from Ohio University.
Go to Profile#2677
Masuko Ushioda
#149061
Overall Influence
1942 - 2013 (71 years)
was a Japanese violinist who had an international career as soloist and teacher. Early life Masuko Ushioda was born in Shenyang, Manchuria. Her parents were a well-educated, cosmopolitan couple: her father was a graduate of Waseda University who became an architect, and her mother was a folkloric dancer and choreographer. As it was her mother's dream for her two daughters to achieve independent lives as professionals, and since Western music was of great interest to her parents, Ushioda and her sister Fusa were introduced to musical instruments early on. Family lore says that in the afterma...
Go to Profile#2678
Geraldine Walther
#114585
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Geraldine Lamboley Walther is an American violist. From 2005 to May 2020 she was a member of the Takács Quartet. During this time she also taught at the University of Colorado Boulder. She was also the principal violist of the San Francisco Symphony, a role she held from 1976 through 2005. Previously, she was assistant principal viola of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Miami Philharmonic. In 1979, she won the First Prize at the Primrose International Viola Competition.
Go to Profile#2679
Sarah Turner
#157027
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Sarah Turner is a British artist, filmmaker, writer, curator and academic. Her moving image work is known for its preoccupation with form and its interplay between abstraction and narration. Education Turner studied Fine Art, Film and Video at St Martin’s School of Art in the late eighties, followed by an MA at the Slade School of Fine Art.
Go to Profile#2680
Silvia Roederer
#150042
Overall Influence
Silvia Roederer DMA is a native of Argentina. Her focus on piano began after emigrating to the U.S. and includes study with John Perry at USC, David Burge at Eastman, and Menahem Pressler at festivals in Banff, Long Beach, and Ravinia.
Go to Profile#2681
Antonia Soulez
#186849
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Antonia Soulez is a French philosopher, musician, poet, and emerita professor of philosophy of Paris 8 St-Denis. Life She started teaching philosophy in Lille before relocating to Amiens. She then taught at Tunis University, Créteil, and Nancy before finally settling at the university of Paris 8 St-Denis. She co-directed the Collège international de philosophie between 2001 and 2004.
Go to Profile#2682
Edna Garabedian
#186837
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Edna Garabedian is an American operatic mezzo-soprano, voice teacher, and opera director. Biography Born to Armenian immigrants to the United States in Fresno, California, Garabedian studied singing with William Vennard at the University of Southern California, Lotte Lehmann at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Anna Hamlin in New York City, and Rosa Ponselle in Baltimore. In 1961 she won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She made her professional opera debut in 1965 as Santuzza in Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana with the New York City Opera. She went on to si...
Go to Profile#2683
Erin Gee
#188569
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Erin Elizabeth Gee is an American composer and vocalist. Among the fellowships she has held are the Guggenheim and the Radcliffe Institute Fellowships, and among the awards she has won for her compositions are the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, the Rome Prize and the first prize of the International Rostrum of Composers. She was on the faculty of the University of Illinois in Urbana as Assistant Professor of Composition-Theory and is currently Associate Professor of Composition at Brandeis University.
Go to Profile#2684
Eva Fleischer
#189431
Overall Influence
1922 - 2016 (94 years)
Eva Fleischer, also Eva Fleischer-Fischer was a German opera contralto and professor at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig. Life Born in Breslau, Fleischer studied at the Musikhochschule Leipzig, where she became a lecturer in 1951. From 1959 to 1966 she belonged to the ensemble of the Leipzig Opera. In the 1960s she was the subject of several oil paintings by Bernhard Heisig. From 1966 to 1982 she was professor at the Musikhochschule Leipzig.
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Tanja Becker-Bender
#186787
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Tanja Becker-Bender is a German violinist. She lives in Berlin and Hamburg. Musical career Born in Stuttgart, Becker-Bender has performed since age of eleven as a soloist on international stages under the baton of Kurt Masur, Gerd Albrecht, Hubert Soudant and Fabio Luisi with renowned orchestras, such as the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. As a chamber musician she appeared in festivals together with Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Boris Pergamenschiko...
Go to Profile#2686
Ralina Joseph
#190134
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Ralina Joseph is an American academic. She is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington, examining representations of race, gender, and sexuality in popular media.
Go to Profile#2687
Viviana Gorbato
#93013
Overall Influence
1950 - 2005 (55 years)
Viviana Gorbato was an Argentine journalist, writer, and university professor. Biography Viviana Gorbato was born in Buenos Aires to an upper middle class Jewish family. When she was a teenager she created a magazine with her friends from high school, formed a theater group, and won a literary contest for a book of unpublished stories. She graduated as a professor of Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Buenos Aires .
Go to Profile#2688
Jessica Zhu
#180457
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (40 years)
Jessica Zhu is a Chinese-American pianist who is currently undertaking a doctorate in musical arts under the supervision of Paul Roberts and Caroline Rae at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, in London. She previously received a Master in Performance and an Artist Diploma with distinction from the Guildhall, where she studied with full scholarship as a 2009 Marshall Scholar.
Go to Profile#2689
Mercedes Matias-Santiago
#187043
Overall Influence
1910 - 2003 (93 years)
Mercedes Matias Santiago was a Filipino soprano and music educator. Early life Born Mercedes Matias on March 4, 1910 in Cavite City, Cavite, Philippines, she was one of three children of Juan Matias of Ligao, Albay and Rosario Regalado of Cavite City. Her father worked as a division head at the U.S. Navy yards in Cavite.
Go to Profile#2690
Endia Beal
#179201
Overall Influence
1985 - Present (41 years)
Endia Beal is an African-American visual artist, curator, and educator. She is known for her work in creating visual narratives through photography and video testimonies focused on women of color working in corporate environments.
Go to Profile#2691
Lynn Morris
#188693
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Lynn Morris is an American bluegrass musician. Morris was raised in Lamesa, Texas, where she learned to play piano at the age of 6 and guitar at the age of 11. She went to Colorado College and graduated with a degree in art. The following year she began to play the banjo. She played with bluegrass groups City Limits which she joined in 1972 and Whetstone Run. She toured full-time through various regions including the United States, Canada, and Europe. She also was nominated and joined the IBMA board of directors. After retiring from her tours in 2003 due to a stroke, she became an audio engineer, producing albums like Ron Stewart's album Time Stands Still in 2001.
Go to Profile#2692
Johana Harris
#183637
Overall Influence
1912 - 1995 (83 years)
Johana Harris was a Canadian pianist, composer, and music educator. She had highly successful career as a concert pianist, making numerous recordings and appearing as a soloist with almost every major American symphony orchestra. She made over 100 solo recordings, working with such labels as Columbia, RCA, Capitol, MGM and Contemporary Records. She also performed on the soundtracks of several Hollywood films and television productions. She was married to composers Roy Harris and Jake Heggie . She performed widely with both men in duo piano concerts and was considered to have had a particular...
Go to Profile#2693
Sara Kathryn Arledge
#179280
Overall Influence
1911 - 1998 (87 years)
Sara Kathryn Arledge was an American artist and filmmaker acknowledged as "one of the foremothers of the American experimental cinema." Early life and education Born in Mojave, California, Arledge received a Bachelor of Education in Art from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1936. She also attended Columbia University and studied painting at The Barnes Foundation. She taught at the Department of Art at the University of Oklahoma from 1943 to 1944, and at the University of Arizona, Tucson from 1945 to 1946.
Go to Profile#2694
Kazuko Hara
#189729
Overall Influence
1935 - 2014 (79 years)
Kazuko Hara was a prolific Japanese opera composer. Life and career Born in Tokyo, she studied at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music with Tomojiro Ikenouchi, graduating in 1957. She subsequently went to France where she studied with Henri Dutilleux and Alexander Tcherepnin. After that she returned to Japan to teach at the Osaka University of Music.
Go to Profile#2695
Melanie Rodriga
#187298
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Melanie Rodriga is a New Zealand-Australian film maker, lecturer, and author. Early life Born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Rodriga was the third child of Daphne Mary and Albert Thomas Read. She is of Eurasian ancestry on her mother's side and British ancestry on her father's side. Her father was a pianist arranger of the British Dance Band Era, playing with Bert Ambrose and Henry Hall , among others. The family moved from Malaysia to Sydney in 1961, and lived in the eastern suburb of Vaucluse. Rodriga graduated from Kambala CofE Foundation School for Girls in 1972. She then traveled to Eng...
Go to Profile#2696
Laura Anne Bossert
#189358
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Laura Anne Bossert is a violinist, violist, and pedagogue. She is a current faculty member at the Longy School of Music of Bard College and Wellesley College and, during the summer, the Castleman Quartet Program. She is co-director and founder of LyricaFest in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
Go to Profile#2697
Anna-Marie Globenski
#188435
Overall Influence
1929 - 2008 (79 years)
Anna-Marie Globenski was a Canadian pianist and teacher who taught at the École de musique Vincent-d'Indy from 1960 to 1963 and Université Laval for 30 years. She was an accompanist for the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal, appeared on CBC Radio and CBC Television and recorded three pages of music from various composers. Globenski was a member of various juries and various music competitions in Canada and Europe. She established the Fonds Fondation Anna-Marie-Globenski in 2001. In early 2005, Laval's preparatory music school was named after Globenski to celebrate 30 years of her ...
Go to Profile#2698
Diana McIntosh
#186764
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Diana Maud McIntosh was a contemporary Canadian composer and pianist who was based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Hailed by the Canadian Encyclopedia as "a champion of 20th-century Canadian music", she premiered piano works by such Canadian composers as Peter Allen , Norma Beecroft , Robert Daigneault , Alexina Louie , Marjan Mozetich , Boyd McDonald , Jean Papineau-Couture , Ann Southam , Robert Turner , and John Winiarz .
Go to Profile#2699
Tamara Nizhnikova
#182341
Overall Influence
1925 - 2018 (93 years)
Tamara Nikolayevna Nizhnikova was a Soviet and Belarusian opera singer. Born in Samara, Nizhnikova attended the Moscow Conservatory before joining what later became National Opera and Ballet of Belarus. Prior to her retirement in 1976, Nizhnikova was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, and named a People's Artist of the USSR. She later received the Order of Friendship of Peoples, and the Order of Francysk Skaryna.
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Elisabeth Carron
#185997
Overall Influence
1922 - 2016 (94 years)
Elisabeth Carron , was an American operatic soprano from Newark, New Jersey, who had an active international career from the 1940s through the 1980s. In 1954 she portrayed the Young Woman in the world premiere of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Saint of Bleecker Street. From 1988 to 1996 she taught on the voice faculty at the Manhattan School of Music in New York.
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