Music

Voices, compositions, and performances that people remember.

People in Music

81 profiles

Composer

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Creating the musical Hamilton.

Singer

Freddie Mercury

Fronting Queen and writing Bohemian Rhapsody.

Singer

Aretha Franklin

Turning Respect into a soul anthem.

Singer

David Bowie

Creating Ziggy Stardust and repeatedly reinventing his music.

Composer

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Composing The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro.

Singer

Nina Simone

Bringing classical piano and civil-rights conviction into soul music.

Singer

Beyoncé

Making Crazy in Love, Single Ladies and Lemonade.

Singer

Rod Stewart

Singing Maggie May, Sailing and Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?

Singer

Mary J. Blige

Bringing soul singing and hip-hop together on What’s the 411? and My Life.

Rapper

LL Cool J

Recording Mama Said Knock You Out and becoming an early solo rap star.

Singer

Dolly Parton

Writing and singing Jolene, I Will Always Love You and 9 to 5.

Singer

Neil Diamond

Writing and singing Sweet Caroline and America.

Composer

Franz Schubert

Composing Winterreise, the Unfinished Symphony and hundreds of songs.

Singer

Shakira

Singing Hips Don’t Lie, Whenever, Wherever and Waka Waka.

Composer

Felix Mendelssohn

Composing the Wedding March and reviving Bach’s St Matthew Passion.

Singer

Bob Marley

Bringing reggae to a worldwide audience with the Wailers.

Singer

Peter Gabriel

Singing Sledgehammer and co-founding the WOMAD festival.

Singer

The Weeknd

Singing Blinding Lights, Starboy and Can’t Feel My Face.

Singer

Rihanna

Singing Umbrella, Diamonds and We Found Love.

Composer

Gioachino Rossini

Composing The Barber of Seville and William Tell.

Composer

Antonio Vivaldi

Composing The Four Seasons.

Singer

Nat King Cole

Singing Unforgettable, Mona Lisa and The Christmas Song.

Rapper

Queen Latifah

Recording U.N.I.T.Y. and starring in Living Single and Chicago.

Composer

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Composing The Phantom of the Opera, Cats and Evita.

Singer

Lady Gaga

Singing Bad Romance, Born This Way and Shallow.

Composer

Vangelis

Composing the scores for Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner.

Singer

Billie Holiday

Singing Strange Fruit and reshaping jazz through intimate, flexible phrasing.

Singer

Paul Robeson

Combining a celebrated bass-baritone voice with outspoken civil-rights activism.

Pianist

Herbie Hancock

Bringing jazz piano into new conversations with funk and electronic music.

Singer

Barbra Streisand

Starring in Funny Girl and building a career across singing, acting and directing.

Singer

Ella Fitzgerald

Turning jazz singing and scat improvisation into a form of effortless virtuosity.

Composer

Duke Ellington

Composing for a jazz orchestra as a palette of individual voices.

Singer

James Brown

Helping create funk through rhythm-driven songs and explosive stage performances.

Singer

Stevie Wonder

Creating soul albums including Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life.

Singer

Cher

Reinventing herself across pop music, television and Oscar-winning film roles.

Singer

Bob Dylan

Expanding popular songwriting with poetic, political and surreal lyrics.

Trumpeter

Miles Davis

Leading jazz in new directions through Kind of Blue and electric fusion.

Singer

Kylie Minogue

Creating dance-pop hits including Can’t Get You Out of My Head.

Clarinetist

Benny Goodman

Leading a defining swing orchestra and prominent racially integrated jazz groups.

Singer

Prince

Fusing funk, rock and pop in Purple Rain and a vast self-directed catalogue.

Songwriter

Cole Porter

Writing witty, sophisticated songs for musicals including Anything Goes and Kiss Me, Kate.

Pianist

Chick Corea

Bridging acoustic jazz and electric fusion with Return to Forever.

Composer

Edvard Grieg

Composing the Piano Concerto and the music for Peer Gynt.

Composer

Igor Stravinsky

Composing The Rite of Spring and reshaping twentieth-century musical rhythm.

Singer

Paul McCartney

Writing Beatles songs and continuing with Wings and a long solo career.

Singer

Lena Horne

Singing Stormy Weather and challenging racial barriers in American entertainment.

Composer

Gustav Mahler

Writing symphonies that combine orchestral drama, song and vast emotional contrasts.

Rapper

M.I.A.

Combining rap, electronic music and a refugee’s perspective in Paper Planes.

Singer

Tony Bennett

Singing I Left My Heart in San Francisco.

Musician

Louis Armstrong

Making the jazz solo a powerful personal voice.

Singer

Whitney Houston

Singing I Will Always Love You with extraordinary power and control.

Singer

Madonna

Continually reinventing pop music, performance and image.

Composer

Claude Debussy

Expanding musical colour through works such as La mer and Clair de lune.

Composer

Leonard Bernstein

Composing West Side Story and bringing orchestral music to television audiences.

Singer

Michael Jackson

Making Thriller and redefining the pop music video.

Singer

Gloria Estefan

Bringing Latin rhythms into international pop with Miami Sound Machine.

Singer

Buddy Holly

Helping establish the guitar-band sound of rock and roll.

Musician

B. B. King

Giving electric blues a distinctive singing guitar voice.

Singer

Hank Williams

Writing country standards including I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.

Musician

John Coltrane

Expanding jazz saxophone through Giant Steps and A Love Supreme.

Composer

Dmitri Shostakovich

Writing symphonies and quartets under the pressures of Soviet rule.

Musician

John Lennon

Co-founding the Beatles, writing with Paul McCartney and recording Imagine.

Singer

Luciano Pavarotti

Bringing an unmistakably bright tenor voice to opera houses, stadiums and the Three Tenors concerts.

Musician

Chuck Berry

Helping define rock and roll with guitar riffs, teenage stories and songs such as Johnny B. Goode.

Composer

Franz Liszt

Transforming virtuoso piano performance and composing works that stretched the instrument’s expressive possibilities.

Violinist

Niccolò Paganini

Pushing violin technique to spectacular extremes in performances and the 24 Caprices.

Composer

Ennio Morricone

Writing film scores whose whistles, voices and melodies became inseparable from the scenes.

Singer

Miley Cyrus

Moving from Hannah Montana stardom to a solo career spanning pop, country and rock.

Singer

Tina Turner

Rebuilding her career as a solo rock and soul star with Private Dancer.

Guitarist

Jimi Hendrix

Transforming electric-guitar playing through distortion, feedback and inventive performance.

Singer

Bette Midler

Singing The Rose and Wind Beneath My Wings, and playing Winifred in Hocus Pocus.

Singer

Maria Callas

Transforming operatic roles into intensely dramatic performances, especially Norma and Tosca.

Rapper

Jay-Z

Building a defining hip-hop catalogue with Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint and The Black Album.

Pianist

Dave Brubeck

Leading the quartet behind Take Five and the rhythmically adventurous album Time Out.

Composer

Hector Berlioz

Composing Symphonie fantastique and expanding the dramatic possibilities of the orchestra.

Singer

Frank Sinatra

Making songs such as My Way and Fly Me to the Moon standards of popular singing.

Singer

Taylor Swift

Turning personal storytelling into global country and pop success, from Fearless to the Eras Tour.

Singer

Édith Piaf

Giving French chanson an international voice through La Vie en rose and Non, je ne regrette rien.

Singer

Annie Lennox

Fronting Eurythmics and singing Sweet Dreams, Why and Walking on Broken Glass.

Composer

A. R. Rahman

Reshaping Indian film music with Roja and Bombay, then winning two Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire.

Composer

Ludwig van Beethoven

Expanding what a symphony could express, from the Fifth’s four-note opening to the Ninth’s Ode to Joy.