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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School

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Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Communications,

#11801

Rouben Gregorian

#188257

Overall Influence

1915 - 1991 (76 years)

Ruben Gregorian was an Iranian and Armenian composer, conductor, musician, and violinist. He was the former conductor of the Tehran Symphony Orchestra and one of the pioneers of recording local Iranian songs.

#11802

Robert Een

#184846

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Robert Een is an American composer, cellist, and vocalist. Career Known for his use of extended vocal and cello techniques, Een has recorded eight albums of his compositions and scored several films. He received Bessie Awards for music composition in 1998 and for sustained achievement in 2000. He won an Obie Award in 2004 for his score to Dan Hurlin's puppet theatre work Hiroshima Maiden. His music for dance and theater can be heard in the repertories of Liz Lerman, David Dorfman, Jennifer Muller, Brian Selznick, and Yin Mei, among others. He teaches voice and composition in UCLA's Department...

#11803

Tom Watson

#180223

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Tom Watson is an American musician known for playing guitar with Slovenly, Red Krayola, and Mike Watt + The Missingmen Career Born in 1962 in New York City, Watson's father was an illustrator and his mother was a theater actor. After first grade, Watson's family moved to Manhattan Beach, California. While attending Mira Costa High School, he met Steve Anderson, Scott Ziegler, and drummer Bruce Losson who were in a band called the Convalescents. When the bass player left, Watson joined and the band name was changed to Toxic Shock.

#11804

John Burke

#176637

Overall Influence

1988 - Present (38 years)

John Burke is an American pianist, composer, and songwriter based in Atlanta, Georgia. Burke is best known for his solo piano albums. He has also composed scores for film, video games, and theatre. Background Burke was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, where he studied Spanish and music at Oglethorpe University. He later studied public administration at Georgia State University. While in school, Burke discovered pianist George Winston and keyboardist Ray Manzarek and was inspired to become a pianist and composer.

#11805

Petras Vyšniauskas

#153371

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Petras Vyšniauskas is a Lithuania multi-instrumentalist of Modern Creative Jazz and a university teacher as a music teacher at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in Vilnius. Life Vysniauskas has previously worked with such musicians as Steve Lacy, Han Bennink, Jon Christensen, Kent Carter, Tomas Kutavičius, Elliott Sharp, Paul Jeffrey, the Rova Saxophone Quartet, Charlie Mariano, Karl Berger, Bobo Stenson, Reiner Winterschladen, Hilliard Greene, Vijay Iyer, Robert Dick, John Lindberg, Eric Vloeimans, Mark Tokar and others. Together with Klaus Kugel he recorded the film music for the German movie Leni.

#11806

Laura Parnes

#178281

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Laura Parnes is contemporary American artist who creates non-linear narratives that engage strategies of film and video art and blur the lines between storytelling conventions and experimentation. Her work is often episodic, references pop culture, female stereotypes, history and the anxiety of influence. She was the co-director of Momenta Art with Eric Heist and helped relaunch the not-for-profit exhibition space in New York City; at first as a nomadic space and then as a permanent space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She continued to her involvement as a Board Chair until 2011. Parnes received her BFA from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University, and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

#11807

Jan Simons

#188050

Overall Influence

1925 - 2006 (81 years)

Jan Simons was a Canadian baritone, music teacher and administrator. Complementing a vocal performance career in Canada in the 1950s and 1960s, he was a member of the faculty of music at McGill University in Montreal and a long-time teacher and general director at the summer music camp of Canadian Amateur Musicians/Musiciens Amateurs du Canada .

#11808

Konrad Meister

#187868

Overall Influence

1930 - 2002 (72 years)

Konrad Meister was a German pianist and music educator. Life Born in Heidelberg, Meister was the son of the writer and publisher Hermann Meister and the pianist Adelheid Meister . He graduated from the Humanistisches Gymnasium in Heidelberg with the Abitur in 1949 and passed the bookseller's assistant exam in 1951. In 1956, he temporarily took over his father's publishing and printing business. At the same time, from 1945 he was a young student for piano at the former conservatory in Heidelberg, which was later merged with the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim fusioniert wurde.

#11809

John Beasley

#181621

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

John Rule Beasley , better known as John Beasley, is a jazz pianist, bandleader, and producer of music for film and television. Career He was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and grew up in Texas in a family of musicians.

#11810

Gustav Schmahl

#188236

Overall Influence

1929 - 2003 (74 years)

Gustav Schmahl was a German violinist and university lecturer. He was the only student of David Oistrach from the GDR. Schmahl worked at times as concertmaster of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and from 1973 to 1984 as rector of the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig.

#11811

Wallace Berry

#187934

Overall Influence

1928 - 1991 (63 years)

Wallace Berry was an American music theorist and composer who taught at the University of Michigan and later at the University of British Columbia. Mid-way through his career, Berry shifted focus from music composition, and became a leading figure in the research and teaching of music theory.

#11812

Dick Shearer

#184283

Overall Influence

1940 - 1997 (57 years)

Richard Bruce Shearer was an American jazz trombonist. Career Shearer was lead trombonist and music director for the Stan Kenton Orchestra. He succeeded Jim Trimble in the late 1960s, led the band during Kenton's illnesses, and produced several of its albums. He remained with the band until Kenton's death in 1979. For the next three years, Shearer was director of jazz bands at Wayne State University in Detroit.

#11813

Dariush Pirniakan

#179204

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Daryoush Pirniakan is an Iranian musician, tar and setar player, and music researcher. Biography Daryoush Pirniakan, a musician and composer of Persian classical genre, learned tar and setar under the supervision of Mohammad Hasan Ozari, maestro Ali-Akbar Shahnazi, Dr. Daryoush Safvat, Yousef Foroutan, Saeed Hormozi, and Mahmoud Karimi. While being a student of late maestro Ali Akbar khan Shahnazi, he had the honor to study radif of Mirza Hossein-gholi and Shahnazi's advanced level repertoire .

#11814

Randy Gelispie

#176946

Overall Influence

Randle Gelispie, "Randy" or "Uncle G", is an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and educator. Born in 1935 in Akron, Ohio, Randy Gelispie began playing drums at a young age. He played clubs while still in his teens, technically illegal for him to even be there inside some of them. Everyone around knew who he was though, and there are stories of police even helping him carry his equipment.

#11815

Roy McCurdy

#156160

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (90 years)

Roy McCurdy is a jazz drummer. Career Before joining Cannonball Adderley's Quintet in 1965 and staying with the band until Adderley's death in 1975, he had played with Chuck and Gap Mangione in the Jazz Brothers , as well as with Bobby Timmons, Betty Carter and Sonny Rollins , appearing on the classic 1963 album Sonny Meets Hawk!

#11816

John Orford

#189764

Overall Influence

John Orford is a British classical bassoonist. He studied under Charles Cracknell and William Waterhouse at the Royal Manchester College of Music. After graduation, he became a member of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, and later the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In 1982, he was appointed Principal Bassoon of the London Sinfonietta. In 1984, he joined the faculty at the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama as professor of bassoon. In 1999, he commissioned Geoffrey Grey to write the piece Preamble and 5 Variations for bassoon and piano. He has appeared with all the major Bri...

#11817

William Thomas McKinley

#180245

Overall Influence

1938 - 2015 (77 years)

William Thomas McKinley was an American composer and jazz pianist born in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. He wrote more than 300 musical compositions in what he called a neo-tonal style, of which Margalit Fox writes, for The New York Times, "were known for their lyricism, rhythmic propulsion and accessibility" and adds that his music "could recall not only jazz and blues but also Bach, Debussy, Ravel and Vaughan Williams.". Many of these works have been recorded by such ensembles as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Boston...

#11818

Mac Morgan

#181994

Overall Influence

1917 - 2007 (90 years)

Mac Morgan was an American bass-baritone who had an active performance career in concerts and operas from the early 1940s until the mid-1970s. The Boston Globe described him as a singer "known for his rich tone and enviable diction". After retiring from the stage, he embarked on a second successful career as a voice teacher.

#11819

Nick Adams

#175702

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

Nicholas Adams is an American actor, singer, and dancer, known for starring as Adam/Felicia in the original Broadway production of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and starring as Whizzer Brown in the first national tour of the Lincoln Center Theater revival of Falsettos.

#11820

Arne Eigenfeldt

#189406

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Arne Eigenfeldt is a Canadian composer and creator of interactive and generative music systems based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Both his music and his research into intelligent systems have been presented internationally. He is currently a professor of music at Simon Fraser University. He also produces electronica under the pseudonyms Raemus and loadbang.

#11821

Juozas Rimas

#189784

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Juozas Rimas is a Lithuanian oboist and professor at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre who has recorded over 150 pieces and played for a number of regional orchestras. Biography Juozas Rimas graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in 1965, and completed his post-graduate studies at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1969. He began performing as a soloist in 1961, and has been one of the most active Lithuanian soloists since then. Rimas' performances have frequently been featured on Lithuanian National Radio. He has participated in a number of international festi...

#11822

Margot Guilleaume

#181755

Overall Influence

1910 - 2004 (94 years)

Margot Guilleaume was a German operatic soprano, a member of the Hamburg State Opera. She was an academic teacher at the Musikhochschule Hamburg from 1950 to 1978, and was known beyond Germany as a singer in oratorio and concert.

#11823

Gitti Pirner

#186853

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Gitti Pirner is a German classical pianist and professor emeritus of the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. Biography Pirner grew up in Sonthofen. Having learned to play the piano from early childhood, she gave her first piano recital at the age of seven and Mozart's first piano concerto at the age of eight. When she was twelve, she played Mozart's 23rd Piano Concerto in A major, KV 488, as part of a solo concert, and received positive press coverage from the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.

#11824

Laura Huertas Millán

#188969

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

Laura Huertas Millán is a French artist and filmmaker. Her works have been presented in various cinema festivals, including the IFFR, FIDMarseille, Cinéma du Réel, Berlinale , and Locarno Film Festival. Widely shown in the contemporary art world, her artworks are part of public and private collections in Europe and the Americas.

#11825

Geoff Marslett

#173088

Overall Influence

1901 - Present (125 years)

Geoff Marslett is an American film director, writer, producer, animator and actor. His early career started with the animated short Monkey vs. Robot which was distributed internationally by Spike and Mike's Classic Festival of Animation on video and Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation in theatres. More recently he directed several successful narrative feature films including MARS, as well as producing and acting in the experimental documentary Yakona. He appears onscreen in Josephine Decker's Thou Wast Mild and Lovely which was released theatrically in 2014. He currently re...

#11826

Einar Steen-Nøkleberg

#180068

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Einar Steen-Nøkleberg is a Norwegian classical pianist and musical pedagogue. Early life Steen-Nøkleberg was born in Østre Toten to farmer Jacob Steen-Nøkleberg and Signe Sveen. He has recorded more than fifty albums, and toured all over Europe, in America, Asia, and the Soviet Union.

#11827

James Fei

#182817

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

James Fei or Fei Cheng-ting is a contemporary classical music and electronic music composer and performer. He lives in the San Francisco Bay area. He plays the soprano, alto, and baritone saxophones, bass clarinet and contrabass clarinet.

#11828

Ludmila Ulehla

#177617

Overall Influence

1923 - 2009 (86 years)

Ludmila Ulehla was an American composer and music educator. Biography Ludmila Ulehla was born in Flushing, Queens, New York. She began the study of piano and violin very early and wrote short compositions at the age of five. Later she studied composition under Vittorio Giannini at the Manhattan School of Music and was awarded a master's degree. Ulehla took a position on the faculty of the same school in 1947, and was Chair of the Composition Department from 1972 to 1989.

#11829

John Rimmer

#177486

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

John Rimmer is a New Zealand composer. Biography John Francis Rimmer was born in Auckland. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1961 from the University of New Zealand in 1961, a Master of Arts in 1963 from the University of Auckland with Ronald Tremain, where he also completed post-graduate studies in musicology. He continued his studies, earning a Doctor of Music degree in 1972 from the University of Toronto in electronic music with Gustav Ciamaga and in composition with John Weinzweig.

#11830

Peter Epstein

#182095

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Peter Coleman Epstein is an American jazz saxophonist. Biography Epstein learned clarinet as a youth from his father, Ed Epstein, who played saxophone, but picked up his father's instrument in his teens, playing in high school ensembles. While attending the California Institute of the Arts, Epstein studied improvisation and composition with bassist Charlie Haden, flautist James Newton, and clarinetist John Carter, concurrently exploring West African music and dance, North and South Indian classical music and Balkan folk music.

#11831

Sherman Ferguson

#177355

Overall Influence

1944 - 2006 (62 years)

Sherman Eugene Ferguson was an American jazz drummer. For a time he was a member of the jazz trio Heard Ranier Ferguson. Background Ferguson once said that when people asked him what he did, he wouldn't tell them he was a musician, he'd say he was a jazz musician. He said he was proud of it and he would wear it as a statement on his forehead if he could.

#11832

John LaBarbera

#180314

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

John LaBarbera is an American trumpeter and arranger who worked with the Buddy Rich Orchestra during the late 1960s. Early life LaBarbera was born in Warsaw, New York, on November 10, 1945. His home town is Mount Morris, New York. He studied music with "his father and at Potsdam State Teachers College and the Berklee School of Music ".

#11833

Leszek Żądło

#188959

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Leszek Zadlo is a Polish jazz musician , composer, and university teacher. Life and work Zadlo was born in Kraków, Poland. He studied music in Kraków, Vienna, and Graz. In the mid-1960s, after he had already worked as a jazz musician in Kraków, he moved to Vienna, where he founded the International Quartet. At the end of the 1960s he joined the Group, a group of improvisational performers at the Musikhochschule Graz, where he taught Swedish trombonist Eje Thelin.

#11834

John Ferguson

#178517

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

John Allen Ferguson is an American organist, teacher, and composer. Ferguson is probably best known for his many choral compositions. He has also published alternate accompaniments and festival arrangements for organ, brass, and percussion of hymns and Lutheran liturgy, and has appeared on several recordings. He has more than 100 titles to his credit.

#11835

Günter Ludwig

#178400

Overall Influence

1931 - 2022 (91 years)

Günter Ludwig is a German pianist. Life and career Born in Großkrotzenburg, Ludwig attended the Musisches Gymnasium Frankfurt. He then studied piano with August Leopolder and Marguerite Long and conducting with Kurt Thomas. He achieved his first successes by participating in international competitions, winning third prizes at the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition in 1954 and 1955. During his tours through Europe, America and Asia, he played in orchestral concerts with conductors such as István Kertész, Georg Solti, Horst Stein and Günter Wand and in chamber music formations wit...

#11836

Purabi Dutta

#161774

Overall Influence

1942 - 2013 (71 years)

Purabi Dutta was a Bengali female singer from Kolkata, West Bengal, India. She is considered as one of the greatest exponents and an authentic singer of Nazrul Geeti . Early years Purabi Dutta was daughter of Bibhuti Dutta, the famous classical vocal maestro. Her training was initiated at home. In 1946 she was a contestant in All India Music Competition organised by Chetla Murari Smriti Sangeet Sammilini where she won the silver trophy in vocal music.

#11837

Jane Coop

#180504

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Jane Austin Coop is a Canadian pianist and music pedagogue. An internationally recognized concert pianist, she has appeared as a recitalist and as a soloist with major symphony orchestras throughout the world. She has performed at such venues as the Bolshoi Hall in St. Petersburg, the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Roy Thomson Hall, the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, the Beijing Concert Hall, and the Salle Gaveau in Paris. From 1980 to 2012 she taught on the faculty of the University of British Columbia’s School of Music in Vancouver. In December 2012, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada.

#11838

Konrad Ragossnig

#170142

Overall Influence

1932 - 2018 (86 years)

Konrad Ragossnig was an Austrian classical guitarist and lutenist. Ragossnig was born in Klagenfurt, Austria. He taught at City of Basel Music Academy, University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna and the University of Zurich. He was the editor of several books on guitar music such as "Step by step. Basics of Guitar technique in 60 classical and romantic studies", Mainz 2007 and "Guitar Concert Collection", Mainz 2008.

#11839

Blanche Winogron

#187595

Overall Influence

1911 - 2002 (91 years)

Blanche Winogron was an American harpsichordist, pianist, virginalist, and teacher. She taught at the Mannes College of Music from 1961 to 1969, and the New England Conservatory of Music from 1968 to 1977. Her students included Peter Sykes and Wendy Redlinger. She was a member of New York Pro Musica and the Rococo Ensemble, and a founding member of the Consort of Players.

#11840

Andreas Willi

#127564

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Andreas Jonathan Willi is a Swiss linguist, philologist, and classicist. He is currently the Diebold Professor of Comparative Philology at the University of Oxford and a professorial fellow of Worcester College, Oxford. He is one of the editors of . In 2020, he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. In 2019, Willi was awarded the Humboldt Prize.

#11841

Ron Kuivila

#118050

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Ron Kuivila is an American sound artist from Boston, MA. He is primarily known for his sound installations, performances, and recorded materials that make use of computers, and for his contributions to the SuperCollider audio programming language.

#11842

David Serero

#186995

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (45 years)

David Serero is a Moroccan-French baritone opera singer. He has played more than 1,500 concerts worldwide, and lead roles in opera, theater and musicals such as Cyrano , Shylock , Othello , Nabucco , Don Quixote , Richard III , Napoleon Bonaparte, Escamillo , Enrico , Amonasro , the title roles of Don Giovanni and Rigoletto and starred in more than 100 films and TV series. He has toured in America, Europe, Middle East, Asia and Russia. In 2017, David Serero was honored in Marquis Who's Who for outstanding achievement in the entertainment world and for his contribution for the betterment of contemporary society.

#11843

David Grimes

#188879

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

David Grimes is an American composer. In 1970 he graduated from the Berklee College of Music with a Bachelor of Music degree. He then entered the University of Toronto where he earned a Master of Music in 1972. In 1971, he co-founded the Canadian Electronic Ensemble with David Jaeger, James Montgomery and Larry Lake. He performed internationally and made several recordings with the group over the next 15 years. In 1976 his composition Increscents won the CBC National Radio Competition for Young Composers. In 1986 he returned to the United States. He currently teaches on the faculty of Northe...

#11844

James McElvenny

#186338

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

James McElvenny is an Australian linguist and intellectual historian based in Germany, known for his work on the history modern linguistics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He has directed research into the theoretical underpinnings of formal linguistics, and has published extensively on the history of typology and language documentation, in particular as it relates to the tradition of linguistic scholarship established by Wilhelm von Humboldt. In this connection, he has worked extensively on Georg von der Gabelentz. He has also published on early twentieth-century language study in ...

#11845

Florence Wightman

#188235

Overall Influence

Florence Wightman was an American harpist of the 20th century. She began her orchestral career in Philadelphia theaters, and then served as Principal Harp for the Cleveland Orchestra, making her the first woman to hold a principal position in the USA, though for only one season. She departed Cleveland to serve as Principal Harp for the Roxy Theater Orchestra in New York City. She later played for the NBC Radio Symphony Orchestra, and served as Principal Harp for the Metropolitan Opera, while simultaneously performing weekly solo recital programs on several national radio networks.

#11846

Kui Dong

#182644

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Kui Dong is a Chinese-American composer, musician, and teacher. She is known for her music which has often incorporated traditional Chinese music into contemporary contexts, and is currently Professor of Music at Dartmouth College. She has released two albums on the Other Minds record label: Hands Like Waves Unfold and Since When Has the Bright Moon Existed? .

#11847

Håkon Storm-Mathisen

#188941

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Håkon Storm is a Norwegian jazz musician , the son of professor of medicine Jon Storm-Mathisen , and known from his own band projects in addition playing within the "Prime Time Orchestra", and collaborations with Tore Brunborg, Finn Guttormsen, Jarle Vespestad, Jacob Young and Beate S. Lech.

#11848

Nikolai Sidelnikov

#179304

Overall Influence

1930 - 1992 (62 years)

Nikolai Nikolayevich Sidelnikov was a Russian Soviet composer. Sidelnikov studied with E. O. Messner and Yuri Shaporin at the Moscow Conservatory. He taught at the Moscow Conservatory where he was a professor from 1981. Among his pupils were Audronė Žigaitytė, Vyacheslav Artemov, Eduard Artemyev, Dmitri Smirnov, Vladimir Tarnopolsky, Vladimir Martynov, Anton Rovner, Sergey Pavlenko, Ivan Glebovich Sokolov and Vladimir Bitkin.

#11849

Neal Creque

#187965

Overall Influence

1940 - 2000 (60 years)

Earl Neal Creque was an American organist and jazz composer, born in the Virgin Islands; he was based in the Cleveland area, was a professor at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and played frequently around northern Ohio up until his death.

#11850

Gintaras Rinkevičius

Gintaras Rinkevičius

#135238

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Gintaras Rinkevičius is a Lithuanian conductor, who was awarded the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts in 1994. In 1989 he founded the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra. Life and career Rinkevičius graduated from Lithuania's M. K. Čiurlionis School of Arts, from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1983, and from Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory in 1986. In 1985 he won the Herbert von Karajan Fund International Competition for Conductors in Berlin. Between 1996 and 2003, he served as the Latvian National Opera’s artistic director and chief conductor; he was also chief cond...

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