Search People Result | Academic Influence

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,

#10751

Helen Boatwright

#171776

Overall Influence

1916 - 2010 (94 years)

Helen Strassburger Boatwright was an American soprano who specialized in the performance of American song, recorded the first full-length album of songs by composer Charles Ives and had a career that spanned more than five decades.

#10752

Gary Scavone

#117061

Overall Influence

Gary Paul Scavone is a computer music researcher and musician. Scavone is currently an associate professor of music technology at McGill University. Previously, Scavone directed the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University. He, along with Perry Cook, authored the Synthesis Toolkit . After conducting extensive research into the digital modeling of woodwind instruments , Scavone turned to the electronic synthesis of such instruments.

#10753

António Pinho Vargas

#154872

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

António Pinho Vargas is a Portuguese composer and pianist specializing in jazz and contemporary music. He has also written books, essays, and articles on music. Career Having obtained a degree in history at the University of Porto, he studied music at the Rotterdam Conservatory from 1987 to 1990 and graduated with a degree in Musical Composition. In 1991, he began teaching musical composition at the Escola Superior de Música in Lisbon. His first jazz album was Outros Lugares . He also wrote soundtracks for Portuguese films and theatrical plays.

#10754

Ani Kavafian

#172406

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Ani Kavafian is a classical violinist and professor at the Yale School of Music. Early life and education Born in Istanbul of Armenian heritage, Ani Kavafian began piano lessons at the age of three. After immigrating to the United States in 1956, she began violin studies in Detroit, Michigan with Ara Zerounian and then with Mischa Mischakoff. She went on to study at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian receiving a Master of Science degree.

#10755

Michael Lowenstern

Michael Lowenstern

#139684

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Michael Lowenstern is an American musician, composer and educator, specializing in bass clarinet. He is well known for his YouTube channel Earspasm and for his many recordings featuring the bass clarinet as a solo instrument in classical, jazz, and electronica formats.

#10756

Albert Laszlo

#180977

Overall Influence

Albert Laszlo was formerly the principal bass of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, formerly faculty of the Juilliard School College and Pre-College Divisions as well as the College-Conservatory of Music , and is currently faculty at the University of New Mexico.

#10757

Mike Auldridge

#111217

Overall Influence

1938 - 2012 (74 years)

Mike Auldridge was an American Dobro player and a founding member of the bluegrass group The Seldom Scene. The New York Times described Auldridge as "one of the most distinctive dobro players in the history of country and bluegrass music while widening its popularity among urban audiences". He also worked as a graphic artist.

#10758

James Chater

#184072

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

James Chater is a British composer and musicologist born in Henley-on-Thames in 1951. He studied music at the University of Oxford, taking the BA in 1973 and the D.Phil. in 1980. His thesis, Luca Marenzio and the Italian Madrigal, 1577-1593, was published as a book in 1981. He is the author of many articles on secular music in Italy in the late 16th century; these have appeared in Early Music, the Journal of American Musicology, Journal of Musicology, Music & Letters, The Musical Times, Notes, the Rivista italiana di musicologia, Il saggiatore musicale, Studi musicali and other periodicals and Festschrifts.

#10759

Suzanne Davis

#183680

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Suzanne Davis is an American jazz pianist. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Wellesley College. She composed the score for the independent film In Between as well as several short animated films and videos. She has performed with Phil Grenadier, Greg Hopkins, Ted Kotick, Joe Hunt, and Grover Washington, Jr. She is leader of the Suzanne Davis Trio and Quartet and also performs with the Bart Weisman Jazz Group. She is an Associate Professor of piano at Berklee College of Music.

#10760

Nikolai Korndorf

#179018

Overall Influence

1947 - 2001 (54 years)

Nikolai Sergeevich Korndorf was a Russian and Canadian composer and conductor. He was prolific both in Moscow, Russia, and in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Biography Born in Moscow, Russia, Korndorf studied composition with Sergey Balasanian at the Moscow Conservatory from 1965 to 1970. During these years, he wrote a one-act opera A tale on... based on the work of Semyon Kirsanov. In 1973, Korndorf completed post-graduate studies with his opera Feast in the Time of Plague based on the play of the same name by Alexander Pushkin.

#10761

Fenwick Smith

#176271

Overall Influence

1949 - 2017 (68 years)

Fenwick Smith was an American flutist. He studied under Joseph Mariano at the Eastman School of Music, graduating from there in 1972. Shortly thereafter he became a member of the New England Woodwind Quintet and began a thirteen-year membership with Boston Musica Viva. He became the assistant principal flutist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1978, serving in that position until September 2006. During this time he was also principal flutist of the Boston Pops Orchestra. Smith was also a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society since 1984, and since 1983 gave annual recitals at Jordan Hal...

#10762

Heinrich Chantraine

#94180

Overall Influence

1929 - 2002 (73 years)

Heinrich Chantraine was a German researcher, numismaticsian and professor of history at the University of Mannheim as well as the University of Mainz. Furthermore, he served as president of the University of Mannheim between 1985 and 1988.

#10763

Laura Kaminsky

#137975

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Laura Kaminsky is an American composer, producer of musical and multi-disciplinary cultural events, and educator. She was born in New York City, graduated from the High School of Music and Art, and studied with Joseph Wood at Oberlin College and Mario Davidovsky at City College of New York. She graduated from City College/CUNY with a Master of Arts degree in composition in 1980.

#10764

Dave Lewis

#174329

Overall Influence

1938 - 1998 (60 years)

David Eugene Lewis was an American rock and rhythm & blues keyboardist, organist, and vocalist based in Seattle, Washington, US. Peter Blecha accounts his Dave Lewis Combo as "Seattle's first significant African American 1950s rock and roll band" and Lewis himself as "the singularly most significant figure on the Pacific Northwest's nascent rhythm & blues scene in the 1950s and 1960s."

#10765

Udo Hahn

#170913

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Udo Hahn is a German Evangelical Lutheran theologian, pastor and publicist. External links Books on and by Udo Hahn in the Deutschen Nationalbibliothek

#10766

Zsolt Gárdonyi

#184047

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Zsolt Gárdonyi is a German-Hungarian composer, organist and music theorist. He is the son of Zoltán Gárdonyi. Career Gárdonyi was born in Budapest, Hungary. He studied composition, organ, sacred music and theory. At the age of 19 he received an award of the Budapest university competition in organ as well as composition. Aged 24 he became cantor of the Alexanderkirche in Wildeshausen, Germany. Ten years later he was appointed professor for theory of music at the Hochschule für Musik Würzburg in Würzburg. His students include Claus Kühnl, Thomas Hitzlberger, Franz J. Stoiber and Lilo Kunkel.

#10767

Brian Jackson

#182419

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Brian Jackson is a British-Canadian conductor, organist and pianist. He became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 1974. Until 2012 he was Principal Pops Conductor of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Orchestra London, and the Victoria Symphony.

#10768

Ana Sokolovic

#180590

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Ana Sokolovic is a Canadian music composer based in Montreal, Quebec, whose contemporary pieces have won several awards in Canada. Career Sokolovic studied composition under Dušan Radić at the University of Novi Sad and Zoran Erić at the University of Arts in Belgrade. She received her masters in composition from the Université de Montréal studying under José Evangelista.

#10769

Paul W. Whear

#143053

Overall Influence

1925 - 2021 (96 years)

Paul William Whear was an American composer, conductor, music educator, and double-bassist. Life and career Whear was born in Auburn, Indiana, and studied at Marquette University, the Catholic Jesuit University in Milwaukee where he received the B.N.S. After service as an officer in the U.S Navy, he attended DePauw University School of Music in Greencastle, Indiana, where he received the Bachelor of Music and Master of Music, and Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where he received the Ph.D. He received the Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Marquette University in 2002.

#10770

Tracy Dahl

#185554

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Tracy Elizabeth Dahl is a Canadian coloratura soprano who has performed in opera houses and on concert stages around the world. Alongside her performing career, Dahl teaches voice at the University of Manitoba Desautels Faculty of Music, and conducts masterclasses and workshops across North America. She lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba with her husband and two children.

#10771

Tamir Hendelman

Tamir Hendelman

#165139

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Tamir Hendelman is an Israeli-American jazz pianist. Hendelman has performed with the Jeff Hamilton Trio, the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, Harry Allen, Teddy Edwards, Warren Vaché, Houston Person, Jeff Clayton, Nick Brignola, Phil Upchurch, Rickey Woodard, John Clayton and Barbara Morrison. He also leads his own trio and his debut CD Playground features him in this trio setting. His album Destinations features Lewis Nash and Marco Panascia. The album reached number one on the JazzWeek Jazz Charts in September 2010.

#10772

David Timm

#181587

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

David Timm is a German pianist, organist, choral conductor and jazz musician. Since February 2005 he has been of the Leipzig University, and thus also director of the Leipziger Universitätschor, succeeding Wolfgang Unger.

#10773

Loren Hightower

#45662

Overall Influence

1927 - 2017 (90 years)

Loren Hightower was an American dancer who split his performing career between ballet and musical theatre. He was no relation to ballerina Rosella Hightower. Originally from Belton, Texas, Hightower trained with Ted Shawn. He danced principal roles with the Metropolitan Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and the Agnes de Mille Dance Theatre; in addition, he performed regularly at the Metropolitan Opera. Like many ballet dancers of the 1940s and 1950s, Hightower frequently supplemented his income by working in musical theatre, and his Broadway appearances include Peter Pan, 110 in the Shade, Camelot, Anyone Can Whistle, and Brigadoon.

#10774

Gao Hong

#134231

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Gao Hong is a composer and performer of the Chinese pipa . She serves as the professor of Chinese Musical Instruments at Carleton College. She is the recipient of multiple music awards and has been honored by the Saint Paul, Minnesota Mayor Melvin Carter , who declared April 3, 2022 to be Gao Hong Day.

#10775

Martinho Lutero Galati

Martinho Lutero Galati

#183410

Overall Influence

1953 - 2020 (67 years)

Martinho Lutero Galati de Oliveira was a Brazilian conductor, born in Alpercata. He died in São Paulo in March 2020 after suffering from COVID-19. Galati wrote the book Do gesture à gestão: um diálogo sobre maestros e liderança. He was director of the Coral Paulistano do Theatro Municipal de São Paulo from 2013 to 2016. He was elected president of the Associação Brasileira de Regentes Corais in 2018. He was a professor at the Free University of Languages and Communication and at the Institute of Musicology of Milan.

#10776

Ben Wolfe

#168879

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Benjamin Jonah Wolfe is an American jazz bassist who has performed in groups with Wynton Marsalis, Harry Connick Jr., and Diana Krall. He is currently on the teaching faculty at The Juilliard School Jazz Division.

#10777

James Penberthy

#137043

Overall Influence

1917 - 1999 (82 years)

James Penberthy AM was an Australian composer and journalist. Biography He was born Albert James Penberthy in Melbourne in 1917. He served with the Royal Australian Navy during World War II. He then studied at the University of Melbourne, where he obtained first class honours in composition. He later studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and conducting with Sir John Barbirolli in England. He made his home in Perth, Western Australia, where he founded the West Australian Opera Company and was co-founder of the West Australian Ballet with his third wife, the Monaco-born Russian dan...

#10778

Michael Alec Rose

Michael Alec Rose

#183479

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Michael Alec Rose composes chamber and symphonic music. He is Professor of Composition at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. His awards and commissions include the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation’s chamber music commission, for which he composed his String Quartet No. 2, premiered by the Meliora Quartet at Lincoln Center and the Library of Congress; a commission from the International Spoleto Festival for a violin-cello duo; twenty-five consecutive annual awards in composition from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, 1986–2010; string quartet commissions from ...

#10779

Nikolai Arnoldovich Petrov

Nikolai Arnoldovich Petrov

#172640

Overall Influence

1943 - 2011 (68 years)

Nikolai Arnoldovich Petrov was a Russian pianist. Petrov was born in Moscow, the son of the cellist Arnold Ferkelman and the grandson of the operatic bass Vasily Rodionovich Petrov, and began learning the piano at the age of three. At the Central Music School of the Moscow Conservatory his teacher was Tatyana Kestner and in 1961 Petrov entered the class of Yakov Zak at the Conservatory itself. He subsequently won second prize at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas and won second prize at the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels.

#10780

Rolf Smedvig

#185583

Overall Influence

1952 - 2015 (63 years)

Rolf Thorstein Smedvig was an American classical trumpeter. He was the founder of the Empire Brass Quintet. He is renowned for his exemplary tone and accurate intonation. Biography Rolf Smedvig was born in Seattle, Washington. His father Egil Steinar Smedvig was a composer and music teacher who had immigrated from Stavanger, Norway. His mother Kristin Smedvig was member of the Seattle Symphony's violin section who had immigrated from Iceland.

#10781

Lewis Kaplan

#170336

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

Lewis Kaplan is an American violinist, and pedagogue. He is a senior professor in violin and chamber music at the Juilliard School and has been on the faculty at Mannes School of Music since 1987, both located in New York City.

#10782

Alejandro Civilotti

Alejandro Civilotti

#183381

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Alejandro Gabriel Civilotti Carvalho . Argentine composer settled in Barcelona, Spain, considered one of the biggest names of his generation in the contemporary Spanish music scene-. Civilotti studied harmony, counterpoint and composition in La Plata with Enrique Gerardi, who studied with Alberto Ginastera and was in Paris a Pierre Schaeffer and Nadia Boulanger's pupil. Civilotti studied composition and orchestration in Barcelona with Josep Soler i Sardà also.

#10783

Rita McAllister

#178827

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Margaret 'Rita' McAllister is a Scottish musicologist, composer and academic. She is the Director of Music at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and is a renowned authority on the works of Sergei Prokofiev.

#10784

Lalya Gaye

#182028

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Lalya Gaye is a digital media artist and interaction designer whose early work was influential in the field of locative media. Currently based in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, she is the founder and director of the international and interdisciplinary digital art practice Attaya Projects.

#10785

Primož Jakopin

#177534

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Primož Jakopin , born 30 June 1949 is a Slovenian computer scientist, known for his work in the field of language technology and his contribution to speleology. Early life and education Jakopin was born in 1949 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The family lived in the village of Leskovec pri Krškem, Dolenjska region and in 1956 moved to Ljubljana.

#10786

Alexander Courage

#170297

Overall Influence

1919 - 2008 (89 years)

Alexander Mair Courage Jr. familiarly known as "Sandy" Courage, was an American orchestrator, arranger, and composer of music, primarily for television and film. He is best known as the composer of the theme music for the original Star Trek series.

#10787

Philip Grange

#181702

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Philip Grange is an English composer and academic. Career Grange was born in London. He attended Peter Maxwell Davies’s classes at Dartington, and then took further, private, lessons with Davies while at The University of York, where he also studied composition with David Blake.

#10788

Kristian Chong

#180117

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Kristian Chong is an Australian concert pianist. Early life and education His early studies were at the Elder Conservatorium of Music in Adelaide, South Australia, where he was accepted at the age of nine on piano with Stefan Ammer and Noreen Stokes, and violin with Beryl Kimber. He went on to study at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music under Stephen McIntyre, and then the Royal Academy of Music in London with Piers Lane and Christopher Elton.

#10789

Sandy Wilson

#183704

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Sandra “Sandy” Wilson is a Canadian film director and screenwriter, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is best known for her films My American Cousin and Harmony Cats . Most of her films take place in the same areas she grew up: Penticton and Okanagan.

#10790

Jeanne You

#178086

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Jeanne You, also You Ji-yeoun, is a South Korean classical pianist. Education and professional career She began studying the piano at the age of five. After attending Yewon Art School in Seoul she became a student of Laszlo Simon at the Berlin University of the Arts and continued her studies with Klaus Bäßler and Georg Sava at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler. In 2005 she graduated with the degree of "Konzertexamen". She attended masterclasses with Daniel Barenboim, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Klaus Hellwig, Hans Leygraf, Menahem Pressler, and Eliso Virsaladze. She teaches piano at the ...

#10791

Geir Holmsen

#186940

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Geir Holmsen is a Norwegian jazz musician, bassist, arranger and composer, and married 1983 to the singer Maj Britt Andersen. He participated in various bands connected to the jazz club Club 7 in Oslo, from the mid-1970s, including "Kråbøl", "Lotus" and "Chipahua". He is also known from "Jon Eberson Group" , "Jazzpønkensemblet" and "Oslo Rhythm & Blues Ensemble" .

#10792

Jonathan Moore

#183044

Overall Influence

1969 - 2017 (48 years)

Jonathan Moore , also known by his stage name, Wordsayer, was a rapper, DJ and producer born in Seattle, Washington. Known as Seattle's "hip-hop ambassador" and "cultural mayor", Moore was influential in the Northwest hip-hop scene and founded the group Source of Labor in 1989.

#10793

Tyrone Breuninger

#169644

Overall Influence

Tyrone Breuninger was an American trombonist with the Philadelphia Orchestra as well as a euphonium/trombone/tuba teacher from Rowan University, located in Glassboro, New Jersey. Throughout his career, he also did freelance solo performances. His degrees include a Bachelor of Science in music education and an MM of music in performance. He also arranged a version of Georg Philipp Telemann's Sonata in G minor for euphonium.

#10794

John Wang

#187095

Overall Influence

#10795

George C. Baker

#168145

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

George C. Baker is an American organist, composer, pedagogue, and dermatologist. Biography Baker received his first musical instruction at age four. In 1961, he began to take organ lessons with Phil Baker, organist at Highland Park Methodist Church in Dallas. He completed his organ studies with Robert T. Anderson at Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 1973 with a Bachelor's degree in Music. In 1969, he won the Regional Competition, and, in 1970, the National Organ Competition of the American Guild of Organists in Buffalo, NY.

#10796

Abraham Abreu

#163112

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Abraham Abreu is a Venezuelan harpsichordist and pianist . He earned a Masters of Music from Yale University in harpsichord and piano performance before becoming an internationally celebrated concert performer. He has made appearances throughout Europe and the Americas, including performances in England, Scotland, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, the Netherlands, the United States, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, Guatemala, Chile and Brazil. He has been a faculty member at the Universidad Simón Bolívar, the Universidad Central de Venezuela and the Escuela Experimental de Música Manuel Alberto López.

#10797

James Douglas

#174055

Overall Influence

1929 - 2016 (87 years)

James Douglas was an American actor probably best known for his role as Grant Colman on As the World Turns . Born in Los Angeles, Douglas was the son of Stan Johnson, himself an actor. Johnson later became art director on Peyton Place, in which Douglas starred.

#10798

Douglas Ahlstedt

#173577

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Douglas Ahlstedt was an American operatic tenor who had an international performance career with major opera houses from the 1970s through the 1990s. He was a member of the Metropolitan Opera and of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, performing leading roles of the lyric tenore repertoire, and also many supporting roles. He was professor of voice at Carnegie Mellon University from 1998 until 2020.

#10799

Michael Philip Mossman

#183021

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Michael Philip Mossman is an American jazz trumpeter. Career Mossman's early career included a tour of Europe with Anthony Braxton in 1978 and tours with Roscoe Mitchell in the early 1980s. He also did session work in the 1980s, for Styx among others. He played with Lionel Hampton, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and Machito before joining the Blue Note Records ensemble Out of the Blue in 1985. Following this he worked with Toshiko Akiyoshi, Horace Silver , Gerry Mulligan , Dizzy Gillespie, Slide Hampton, Michel Camilo, Bobby Sanabria, Mario Bauza, Eddie Palmieri, and the Philip Morris Superban...

#10800

Marek Kopelent

#181992

Overall Influence

1932 - 2023 (91 years)

Marek Kopelent was a Czech composer, music editor and academic teacher, who is considered to have been at the forefront of the "New Music" movement, and was one of the most-published Czech composers of the second half of the 20th century.

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