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).
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List of the most influential people in Communications,
#10001
Leonard Shure
#172877
Overall Influence
1910 - 1995 (85 years)
Leonard Shure was an American concert pianist. He began his career as a performer at the age of 5 and as a teenager studied privately with Artur Schnabel in Germany. Life Shure graduated from the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin in 1927, at which time he made his debut in Germany. He served as Schnabel's first and only assistant until 1933.
Go to Profile#10002
Even Kruse Skatrud
#182094
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Even Kruse Skatrud lecturer at the University of Oslo, a Norwegian Jazz musician, composer, Music arranger and Orchestra leader. He is the son of musician Harry Andersen and Marit Skatrud Andersen, married to singer-artist Anine Kruse Skatrud and son-in-law of the major Norwegian Contemporary composer Bjørn Kruse .
Go to Profile#10003
Bob Kurtz
#152701
Overall Influence
Bob Kurtz, founder of Kurtz & Friends Animation, is a director, producer, artist, and designer who primarily works in films and TV commercials. He attended the Chouinard Art Institute. He has taught at the character animation program at the California Institute of the Arts.
Go to Profile#10004
Bernhard Lang
#168776
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Bernhard Lang is an Austrian composer, improviser and programmer of musical patches and applications. His work can be described as contemporary classical, with roots, however, in various genres such as 20th-century avant-garde, European classical music, jazz, free jazz, rock, punk, techno, EDM, electronica, electronic music, and computer-generated music. His works range from solo pieces and chamber music to large ensemble pieces and works for orchestra and musical theatre. Besides music for concert halls, Lang designs sound and music for theatre, dance, film and sound installations.
Go to Profile#10005
Kurt Hessenberg
#135161
Overall Influence
1908 - 1994 (86 years)
Kurt Hessenberg was a German composer and professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt. Life Kurt Hessenberg was born on 17 August 1908 in Frankfurt, as the fourth and last child of the lawyer Eduard Hessenberg and his wife Emma, née Kugler. Among his ancestors was Heinrich Hoffmann, whose famous children's book Struwwelpeter Hessenberg was to arrange for children's choir later in his life. From 1927–1931 Hessenberg studied at the Leipzig Conservatory. Among his teachers were Günter Raphael and Robert Teichmüller . In 1933 Hessenberg became a teacher at the Hoch'sche Konservatorium in Frankfurt am Main, where he himself had taken his earliest music lessons.
Go to Profile#10006
Paul Freeman
#170854
Overall Influence
1936 - 2015 (79 years)
Paul Douglas Freeman was an American conductor, born in Richmond, Virginia. Career and education Freeman was a conductor, composer, and founder of the Chicago Sinfonietta. Freeman earned bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees from the Eastman School of Music. A Fulbright Scholarship enabled him to study for two years at the Hochshule für Musik in Berlin, Germany with Ewald Lindemann. He later studied conducting with Pierre Monteux at the American Symphony Orchestra.
Go to Profile#10007
Paul Katz
#141211
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Paul Katz is an American cellist, who was a member of the Cleveland Quartet from 1969 to 1995. He and his wife, pianist Pei-Shan Lee, reside in Boston and teach at the New England Conservatory of Music.
Go to Profile#10008
John McCollum
#174542
Overall Influence
1922 - 2015 (93 years)
John M. McCollum was an American tenor who had an active singing career in operas, concerts, and recitals during the 1950s through the 1970s. As an opera singer he performed with companies throughout North America, mostly working with second tier opera houses. He was much more successful as a singer of oratorios and other works from the concert repertoire, and enjoyed a particularly productive and lengthy relationship with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As a concert singer he sang a wide repertoire but drew particular acclaim for his performances in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Geor...
Go to Profile#10009
Hagai Shaham
#172909
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Hagai Shaham is an Israeli violin virtuoso. He began studying the violin at the age of six and was the last student of the late Professor Ilona Feher. He is also a violin teacher, a professor at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music , in the Faculty of Arts at Tel Aviv University, and an artist-in-residence at Stony Brook University.
Go to Profile#10010
Helmut Barbe
#183695
Overall Influence
1927 - 2021 (94 years)
Helmut Barbe was a German composer. Barbe studied at the where he was taught by Gottfried Grote and Ernst Pepping. Between 1952 and 1975 he was the Cantor at the church in Berlin's Spandau quarter. After this he took a post as a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts in what was at that time West Berlin.
Go to Profile#10011
Bill Madden
#175243
Overall Influence
Bill Madden is an American singer-songwriter, also regarded as an indie musician and an activist. Madden is best known for his environmental song and music video Gone which was in rotation on television networks, MTVU in America and MuchMusic in Canada. As a short film and music video, Gone also won numerous film festival awards and commendations. Madden's music is typically labeled as alternative folk rock or neofolk. Vocally, Madden's voice has been described as a "deep breathy voice [that] serenades listeners," full of range, melodic, and "reminiscent of Jeff Buckley." In his lyrics he often uses metaphor, verse and poetry, to articulate his socio/political and spiritual themes.
Go to Profile#10012
Boris Berman
#167130
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Boris Berman is a Russian pianist and pedagogue. Biography Berman was a student of Lev Oborin at the Moscow Conservatory. He made his debut in Moscow in 1965. He joined an early music ensemble, at the time the only one in Russia, as a harpsichordist. At the same time he worked with contemporary composers such as Alfred Schnittke and Edison Denisov. He played in the first Russian performances of works by Arnold Schoenberg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio and György Ligeti. He also was a guest soloist with several orchestras, including the Moscow Philharmonic and the Moscow Chamber orchest...
Go to Profile#10013
Bruce Boyce
#177499
Overall Influence
1910 - 1996 (86 years)
Bruce Boyce was a prominent Canadian-born American baritone singer of opera, oratorio and lieder, who made his postwar career in Britain and became a professor at the Royal Academy of Music. Early career Born John Bruce McClaren in London, Ontario, Bruce Boyce was the son of a Canadian veterinary surgeon. His father was not musical, but his mother sang and gave him early encouragement. At a young age his family moved to Superior, Nebraska, in the American Midwest, where his singing came to the attention of a teacher interested in drama. He left school at 17 and went to California to seek his fortune, working in harvesting and other odd jobs.
Go to Profile#10014
John Sant'Ambrogio
#157307
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
John Sant’Ambrogio is an American cellist. He studied music at Lebanon Valley College and at Ohio University . He studied cello with Diran Alexanian , with Paul Olefsky , and with Leonard Rose . Sant’Ambrogio was principal cellist with the U.S. Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra from 1956 to 1958, and then played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1959 to 1968. He was cellist with the Boston Piano Trio from 1965 to 1968. He was principal cellist with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra from 1968 to 2005 under music directors Walter Susskind, Jerzy Semkow, and Leonard Slatkin.
Go to Profile#10015
Edward Bennett
#176819
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Edward Bennett is a British film and TV director. He was educated at Eton College. His most notable film is Ascendancy , for which he won the Golden Bear at the 33rd Berlin International Film Festival. The following year he was a member of the jury at the 34th Berlin International Film Festival.
Go to Profile#10016
Omar Daniel
#170236
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Omar Daniel is a Canadian composer and pianist, and an associate professor of composition at the Western University. Early life and education Daniel was born in Toronto, Ontario, of Estonian descent. He earned a Doctor of Music from the University of Toronto where he was a music composition pupil of John Beckwith.
Go to Profile#10017
Don Francisco
#175078
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Don Francisco is an independent American singer, songwriter, and musician, specializing in the field of contemporary Christian music. He has won two Dove awards, 1980 song of the year , and 1980 Songwriter of the year.
Go to Profile#10018
George Webster
#176744
Overall Influence
1991 - Present (35 years)
George Webster is an English actor who is best known for his lead as Milo in E4's British mini-series Tripped , his supporting role as Arden in the Irish independent film My Name Is Emily and Simon Mirren's French-Canadian period series, Versailles . He has also directed two films: the short film The Punisher: Dead of Night and the British comedy Further Ed .
Go to Profile#10019
Dweezil Zappa
#147144
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Dweezil Zappa is an American rock guitarist and occasional actor. He is the son of musical composer and performer Frank Zappa. Exposed to the music industry from an early age, Zappa developed a strong affinity for playing the guitar and producing music. Able to learn directly from guitarists such as Steve Vai and Eddie Van Halen, Zappa released his first single at the age of 12.
Go to Profile#10020
Peter Bernstein
#169452
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Peter Bernstein is an American film score composer, and is the son of Academy Award-winning composer and conductor Elmer Bernstein, with whom he frequently collaborated. Notable films scored or co-scored by Peter Bernstein include Silent Rage , Bolero , The Ewok Adventure , Ewoks: The Battle for Endor , My Science Project , Canadian Bacon , Wild Wild West and Megiddo: The Omega Code 2 .
Go to Profile#10021
Leslie Adams
#165602
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Harrison Leslie Adams, Jr. is an American composer. His works have been performed by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, and Indianapolis Symphony, and commissioned by The Cleveland Orchestra, Ohio Chamber Orchestra, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, and the Center for Black Music Research, among others. Metropolitan Opera artists have performed his vocal works internationally. He has also received composition awards from the National Association of Negro Women and the Christian Arts National Competition for Choral Music. Adams is best known for writing music for voice but has also written numerous purely instrumental compositions as well.
Go to Profile#10022
Himie Voxman
#136689
Overall Influence
1912 - 2011 (99 years)
Himie Voxman was an American musician, teacher, university administrator, and composer known for producing many volumes of pedagogical compositions and literature for wind instruments. Early life Himie Voxman was born in Centerville, Iowa, on September 17, 1912, to Morris Voxman and Mollie Tzipanuk Voxman. His parents were Jewish Ukrainian immigrants who immigrated to the United States three years before Himie was born. Voxman was the fourth of five children, with three older siblings who were born in Ukraine . Until Voxman was in high school, spellings of the surname varied among family memb...
Go to Profile#10023
Cho-liang Lin
#178235
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Cho-Liang Lin , born in Hsinchu, Taiwan, is an American violinist who is renowned for his appearances as a soloist with major orchestras. Musical America named him its "Instrumentalist of the Year" in 2000. He founded the Taipei International Music Festival in 1997, the largest classical music festival in the history of Taiwan, performing to an indoor audience of over 53,000 and the Taipei Music Academy & Festival in 2019, a summer music festival.
Go to Profile#10024
Antoine Beuger
#122272
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Antoine Beuger is a Dutch composer, flautist, and music publisher. He is a founder of the Wandelweiser group. Biography Beuger studied composition from 1973 to 1978 with Ton de Leeuw at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. In 1992, he founded Edition Wandelweiser with Burkhard Schlothauer, of which he is artistic director, and in 1994 established the Klangraum concert series in Düsseldorf. He lives in Haan, Germany, near Düsseldorf. He is a frequently featured composer at the Donaueschinger Musiktage.
Go to Profile#10025
Roger Matton
#173864
Overall Influence
1929 - 2004 (75 years)
Roger Matton OC was a Canadian composer, ethnomusicologist, and music educator. As a composer his works are characterized by their association with folklore and folk music. Early life and education Born in Granby, Quebec, Matton was trained at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal where he was a pupil of Claude Champagne , Isabelle Delorme , and Arthur Letondal . He pursued further studies in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, Olivier Messiaen, and Andrée Vaurabourg. He then studied ethnology at the National Museum of Canada with Marius Barbeau.
Go to Profile#10026
Karl Kroeger
#180897
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Karl Kroeger is an American composer and professor of music at several universities. Kroeger was born in Louisville, Kentucky. He studied at the University of Louisville under such people as Claude Almand. After receiving a Masters of Music at Louisville, Kroeger went to study at the University of Illinois. Here his main teacher was Gordon Binkerd.
Go to Profile#10027
John Bischoff
#169899
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
John Lee Bischoff is an American composer, musical performer, teacher and grassroots activist best known as an early pioneer of live computer music. He also gained fame for his solo constructions in real-time synthesis as well as his ground-breaking work in computer network bands.
Go to Profile#10028
Kosta Kulundzic
#177450
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Kosta Kulundzic is an artist. Biography Kulundzic was originally trained as an architect and graduated from the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 1998. In 2012, he was awarded the Claude Berthault prize.
Go to Profile#10029
Filip Bajon
#116237
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Filip Michał Bajon is a Polish film director and screenwriter. Selected filmography External links
Go to Profile#10030
Stanislav Govorukhin
#157479
Overall Influence
1936 - 2018 (82 years)
Stanislav Sergeyevich Govorukhin was a Soviet and Russian film director, actor, screenwriter, producer and politician. He was named People's Artist of Russia in 2006. His movies often featured detective or adventure plots.
Go to Profile#10031
Matthias Maute
#180804
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Matthias Maute is a virtuoso recorder player and composer. Maute was born in Ebingen, Germany and studied in Freiburg and Utrecht with Baldrick Deerenberg and Marion Verbruggen. In 1990 he won first prize in the soloist category of the competition Musica Antiqua Bruges, Belgium. He subsequently won the Dutch Impressariat Chamber Music Competition.
Go to Profile#10032
George S. Howard
#143188
Overall Influence
1902 - 1995 (93 years)
Colonel George Sallade Howard was commander and conductor of The United States Air Force Band between 1947 and 1963. Life and career A native of Reamstown, Pennsylvania, Howard became a student of Patrick Conway at the Conway Military Band School located on the campus of Ithaca College and played clarinet in Conway's professional band. In 1925 he became the band director of Ohio Wesleyan University , and he earned Bachelor of Arts in Music Education from that institution in 1929. He later earned degrees from New York University ; Chicago Musical College ; and Ithaca College .
Go to Profile#10033
Ben Houge
#192222
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Ben Houge is an American composer and audio designer. He has worked on many projects, including composing music and designing audio for video games since 1996. He contributed to popular titles during his seven years of association with Sierra On-Line including developing audio for the Half-Life series and Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. In 2003, Houge left Sierra to work as a freelance audio designer and later joined the video game corporation Ubisoft. Much of his work employs computers to make decisions and generate sound, and he has incorporated ideas from his experience in digital media into compositions for live performance.
Go to Profile#10034
Johnny Douglas
#174953
Overall Influence
1920 - 2003 (83 years)
Johnny Douglas was an English composer, pianist, musical director, conductor, and string arranger primarily working with film scores and orchestras. He recorded more 500 tracks for Decca Records, over 80 albums for RCA Records, and provided music for 36 films during his career. He was nominated for a BAFTA for his soundtrack for the 1970 film The Railway Children and led RCA'S Living Strings for many years. In addition to films, Douglas composed and conducted music for television series including Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Dungeons & Dragons, The Incredible Hulk, G.I. Joe: A Real Ame...
Go to Profile#10035
Ferenc Rados
#161362
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Ferenc Rados is a Hungarian pianist and professor of piano and chamber music. Until 1996, he taught at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary. After retiring, he gave master classes in Europe and Asia. Rados was awarded the Kossuth Prize in 2010.
Go to Profile#10036
Johnny Moore
#169471
Overall Influence
1938 - 2008 (70 years)
John Arlington "Dizzy" Moore OD was a Jamaican trumpet player and founding member of pioneering Jamaican ska and reggae act The Skatalites. Biography A friend of his attended the Alpha Boys School, which catered for wayward boys and was renowned for its strong musical programme, and impressed by his playing, Moore decided on a strategy of misbehaving to get sent there himself, which worked after pulling "a couple of pranks" to show that he was "going haywire". While at the school he took up the trumpet and studied musical composition under bandleader Ruben Delgado. On leaving the school, he joined the army, playing in the Jamaica Military Band.
Go to Profile#10037
Jim Henry
#180885
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
James Earl Henry , most commonly referred to as "Jim Henry", is a vocal music professor, barbershop bass singer, and co-director of the Ambassadors of Harmony . He is a multiple international award-winning quartet member, whose quartets have appeared nationally on the NBC, PBS, and Fox television networks. Henry is the current director of choral studies at the University of Missouri–St. Louis and a contributing author of widely used musical reference works.
Go to Profile#10038
P. Christopher Earley
#184345
Overall Influence
#10039
Lawrence Berk
#80954
Overall Influence
1908 - 1995 (87 years)
Lawrence Berk was the founder of Berklee College of Music, a pianist, composer and arranger, and educator. Berk oversaw the growth of the modest Schillinger House music school into the Berklee College of Music, the largest independent school of music in the world. Between founding Schillinger House in 1945 and his retirement from Berklee College of Music in 1978, his entrepreneurial and music-industry savvy enabled the school's curriculum to keep place with popular music trends, developments in electronic music, and advancements in recording technology. He highly valued the practical applicat...
Go to Profile#10040
Mark Selby
#172938
Overall Influence
1960 - 2017 (57 years)
Mark Otis Selby was an American blues rock singer-songwriter, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. Born in Enid, Oklahoma, he was a solo artist, signed to ZYX Records in Europe, and one half of performing duo with his wife, songwriter Tia Sillers. He also played guitar in recording sessions for musical artists such as Kenny Rogers, Johnny Reid, Keni Thomas, Jimmy Hall, and Wynonna Judd.
Go to Profile#10041
Johannes Kalitzke
#171223
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Johannes Kalitzke is a German composer and conductor. After studying in Cologne and at the IRCAM in Paris, he was chief conductor at the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen for several years, then led the ensemble musikFabrik and composed operas on commissions in Germany and Austria. He has been Professor of Conducting at the Salzburg Mozarteum from 2015.
Go to Profile#10042
José Antônio Rezende de Almeida Prado
#175701
Overall Influence
1943 - 2010 (67 years)
José Antônio Rezende de Almeida Prado or Almeida Prado was an important Brazilian composer of classical music and a pianist. On Almeida Prado's death, his personal friend, conductor João Carlos Martins stated that Prado had possibly been the most important Brazilian composer ever.
Go to Profile#10043
Gérard Buquet
#179099
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Gérard Buquet is a tubist, conductor and composer, who was born in France. Life He studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, and musicology at the Strasbourg University. Composition studies with Claude Ballif and Franco Donatoni.
Go to Profile#10044
Josef Metternich
#173761
Overall Influence
1915 - 2005 (90 years)
Josef Metternich was a German operatic baritone. Metternich also appeared at the Royal Opera House in London, La Scala in Milan, and made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, in La forza del destino, in 1953.
Go to Profile#10045
Constance Keene
#174554
Overall Influence
1921 - 2005 (84 years)
Constance Keene was an American pianist, who was renowned for her 1964 recording of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Preludes and won critical acclaim for her recordings of the works of Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Carl Maria von Weber and Felix Mendelssohn, as well as Rachmaninoff's Études-Tableaux, Op. 33 and Études-Tableaux, Op. 39.
Go to Profile#10046
Nanette Fabray
#153185
Overall Influence
1920 - 2018 (98 years)
Nanette Fabray was an American actress, singer and dancer. She began her career performing in vaudeville as a child and became a musical-theatre actress during the 1940s and 1950s, acclaimed for her role in High Button Shoes and winning a Tony Award in 1949 for her performance in Love Life. In the mid-1950s, she served as Sid Caesar's comedic partner on Caesar's Hour, for which she won three Emmy Awards, and appeared with Fred Astaire in the film musical The Band Wagon. From 1979 to 1984, she played Katherine Romano, the mother of lead character Ann Romano, on the TV series One Day at a Time.
Go to Profile#10047
Little Simz
#167748
Overall Influence
1994 - Present (32 years)
Simbiatu "Simbi" Abisola Abiola Ajikawo , better known by her stage name Little Simz, is a British rapper, singer and actress. She rose to prominence with the independent release of her first three albums; A Curious Tale of Trials + Persons , Stillness in Wonderland and Grey Area , the last of which was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize and won the awards for Best Album at both the Ivor Novello Awards and the NME Awards.
Go to Profile#10048
Heinz Rögner
#179053
Overall Influence
1929 - 2001 (72 years)
Heinz Rögner was a German conductor. He was born in Leipzig. Rögner was a student of Hugo Steurer , Egon Bölsche and Otto Gutschlicht . From 1947 to 1951, he was a repetiteur and kapellmeister at the conductor at the Deutsches Nationaltheater and Staatskapelle Weimar. In 1954, he became a lecturer in conducting and opera at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in Leipzig. He was also a professor at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler.
Go to Profile#10049
Franz Rottland
#154998
Overall Influence
1934 - 2014 (80 years)
Franz Rottland was a German linguist and Africanist. His interests included the historical linguistics of Nilotic languages and Cushitic languages. Biography After receiving his doctorate on September 8, 1970 at Leiden University and his habilitation in 1979 at the University of Cologne, Rottland served as the Chair of African Studies II at the University of Bayreuth until 1998.
Go to Profile#10050
Thomas Füri
#180107
Overall Influence
1947 - 2017 (70 years)
Thomas Füri Thomas Füri played on a 1761 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin. Filmography
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