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Ana Maria Martinez is a Puerto Rican soprano who arrived on the international scene in leading roles in the last half of the 1990s.

She rose to prominence when she won the Plácido Domingo International Voice Competition Operalia 1995. Domingo supported the beginnings of her career by appearing with her in concert in Madrid, Palm Beach, and Buenos Aires. He also sang with her in a production televised on Puerto Rican television of Puccini's La Bohème, Martinez singing Mimì to Domingo's Rodolfo.

The same opera was the vehicle for her debuts in Los Angeles and in New York (City Opera) during the 1997-1998 season. During the same season she debuted at Opera Stuttgart and Michigan Opera Theater (Adina in L'elisir d'amore) and the Vienna State Opera (Pamina in The Magic Flute).

Other operas she has sung are El Gato Montés by Penella (as Soleá), the title role of Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide, Bizet's Carmen (as Micaëla), Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto, and Verdi's Otello (Desdemona). She has appeared at the Washington Opera, the Opéra de Montpellier, Opera Bonn, the Dresden Music Festival, Houston Grand Opera, the Austin Lyric Opera and the Seattle Opera.

One of the world's most renowned tenors, Plácido Domingo -- along with his frequent collaborators Luciano Pavarotti and José Carreras -- is largely responsible for the increasing mainstream popularity of opera among contemporary listeners. He became established quickly as one of the greatest lyric tenors of his time, and one who could also sing dramatic tenor roles with nearly equally fine results. Domingo's forays into Latin and pop music were also successful, earning him Grammy and Latin Grammy Awards as well as silver, gold, platinum, and multi-platinum-selling albums. As his voice deepened with age in the 2010s, he continued to perform as a baritone.

Born March 21, 1941, in Madrid, Spain, Domingo's parents were both singers in the zarzuela, Spain's distinctive national form of musical theater. His family relocated to Mexico in 1950; there he studied vocal technique, as well as piano and conducting, at the Mexico City Conservatory. His operatic debut was in the small role of Borsa in Verdi's Rigoletto with the National Opera in Mexico City in 1959. His first appearance in the leading tenor role was as Alfredo in Verdi's La Traviata in Monterrey, Mexico, in 1960. Subsequently, he spent close to three years with the Israel National Opera, singing 280 performances in a dozen different roles. His debut with the Metropolitan Opera Company was in a Lewisohn Stadium concert performance of Cavalleria Rusticana, as Turiddu, August 9, 1966. His Metropolitan Opera debut was on September 28, 1968, as Maurice de Saxe in Adriana Lecouvreur -- the first of well over 400 performances at the legendary venue.

In the years to follow, Domingo's stature grew on the strength of regular performances at the world's most famed opera houses, among them La Scala, the Vienna State Opera, London's Covent Garden, the Opéra de la Bastille in Paris, the San Francisco Opera, Chicago's Lyric Opera, and the Los Angeles Music Center Opera (which he co-founded). His recordings included performances with sopranos such as Rosalind Plowright, Katria Ricciarelli, and Montserrat Caballe.

During the '80s, Domingo broadened his horizons. He added pop and Latin music to his repertoire, scoring a Top 20 hit with the 1981 John Denver duet "Perhaps Love" from the album of the same name, and winning a Best Latin Pop Performance Grammy in 1985 for Siempre en Mi Corazón (Always in My Heart), a collection of Ernesto Lecuona songs. He also appeared in several filmed operas, including Franco Zeffirelli's La Traviata in 1982, Franco Rossi's Carmen in 1984, and Zeffirelli's Otello in 1986.

However, Domingo's greatest popularity came as one of the Three Tenors, a trio featuring Pavarotti and Carreras, whose albums and live concert videos enjoyed mainstream success not enjoyed by operatic recordings in many decades. The Three Tenors' 1990 debut album became one of the best-selling classical albums of all time, and they continued to perform and record until 2003. In 1992, Domingo began the Christmas in Vienna series of concerts and albums, which featured vocalists such as Carreras, Diana Ross, Charles Aznavour, Tony Bennett, and many others.

During the '90s and 2000s, Domingo's behind-the-scenes work in opera and the arts increased. Having established a relationship with the Washington National Opera in the '80s, he became its Artistic Director in 1996, a position he held until 2011. Meanwhile, he became Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Opera in 2000, ultimately taking on the role of General Director in 2003. He also founded the international opera competition Operalia and became the president of Europa Nostra, a European cultural heritage federation.

Along with these responsibilities, Domingo continued to perform, though his roles were changing. He performed in more Wagnerian operas and Russian-language operas such as Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades. He also added new roles in classic and modern operas including Arrigo in Verdi's La Battaglia di Legnano and Tan Dun's The First Emperor. Domingo earned particular acclaim for his performance as Tristan in the 2005 EMI Classics studio recording of Tristan und Isolde, which featured Operalia winner Nina Stemme in the other lead role. In 2009, Domingo switched to baritone parts, starting with Verdi's Simon Boccanegra and following it with roles in the composer's Rigoletto, I due Foscari, La Traviata, and Macbeth, among others. He also continued to record classical and pop albums. His 2011 collection of Verdi baritone arias won a Latin Grammy Award; other projects included 2012's Songs, which featured collaborations with Josh Groban and Susan Boyle, the 2015 holiday album My Christmas, and an appearance on Il Volo's Notte Magica: A Tribute to the Three Tenors in 2016. Another seasonal collection, Placido Domingo & Friends Celebrate Christmas in Vienna, arrived in 2017. ~ Jason Ankeny

From the 1960s into the 2000s, Bacalov's fertile imagination has supplied scores for well over 112 films. He is also a noted piano virtuoso. Bacalov began his concert activity in South America, then traveled to Spain and Paris to further his technique while working as a nightclub pianist. Settling in Rome, Italy, he played piano for RCA film orchestras, and got his first break when Giovanni Fusco asked him to arrange a song for Chico Marselli's La ragazza con la valigia (The Girl With the Luggage); the song became a hit. When Damiano Damiani needed a song for his film La noia, Bacalov proposed that he write the entire score, and "so I made my name into the cinema."

From 1959 until 1963, he composed under the pseudonym Luis Enríquez. His notable '60s soundtracks include Pasolini's The Second Gospel of Matthew (1965); M. Fondato's I protagonisti (1968), a strongly rhythmic soundtrack in a modern style; and Damiani's Quién sabe? (1966). This last film was supposedly done under the "supervision" of Ennio Morricone, but in fact, Morricone never heard the music; the producers simply wanted his name in the credits. When Bacalov's name was replaced by Morricone's in Spain, Bacalov could not sue because the company had ceased to exist.

The 1970s saw the creation of music for C. Lizzani's Roma Bene (1971), known for its irony; F. Di Leo's Milano calibro 9 (1972), another highly rhythmic score with imitation responses between the instruments; Giraldi's La rosa rossa (1973, The Red Rose) with quotes from various symphonies by Gustav Mahler; the 1979 TV miniseries Le rose di Danzica (directed by Bevilacqua); and F. Giraldi's La giacca verde (1979, The Green Jacket). When famed composer Nino Rota passed away in 1978, director Federico Fellini needed a composer for La città delle donne (1980, The City of Women). Rota had previously introduced Bacalov to Fellini during the sound recording for Fellini's Il Casanova (1976) and had praised his musical abilities, so Bacalov was hired. Other significant scores in the 1980s included D. Kurys Coup de foudre (1983) and F. Infascelli's La maschera (1988, The Mask) with Bacalov's fine imitation of Baroque music styles and even a miniature "opera caricatura."

The unique timbres of Bacalov's score for Greco's Una storia semplice (1991, A Simple Story) are especially interesting. But, aside from the work for Fellini, Bacalov is best-known for his Oscar-winning score for Il postino (1995, The Postman). Director Michael Radford was said to be "a difficult man with composers," but he was eventually pleased with Bacalov's tango-inflected Spanish/Latin American score that features the complex accordion called the bandoneon. "If I had written a much better score for a less important film, I would never had an Oscar. In a way, the Oscar was for the Italian film." Bacalov's other work includes scores for several TV films (Don Milano -- Il priore di barbiana, L'avvocato delle donne) and American and French films (It Had to Be You, The Love Letter, Les enfants du siècle).

Myung-Whun Chung is one of the leading conductors of his generation. Also a prize-winning pianist, he is particularly noted for his interpretations of the music of French composer Olivier Messiaen.

There has rarely been as talented a group of siblings as Myung-Whun and his two older sisters, cellist Myung-Wha Chung (born 1944) and violinist Kyung-Wha Chung (born 1948). Myung-Whun made his performing debut as a pianist in Seoul at the age of 7. At 8, he flew to Seattle, WA, to begin his American musical studies. He attended the Mannes School, and later the Juilliard School in New York. His teachers there were Nadia Reisenberg (piano) and Carl Bramburger (conducting).

Chung won the New York Times piano competition in 1970. He made a conducting debut back in Seoul in 1971, conducting the Korean Symphony Orchestra. In 1974, he entered the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow as a pianist, winning second prize. He and his sisters began performing as a trio while he continued conducting studies at Juilliard, conducting both the New York Youth Orchestra and the Pre-College Orchestra of the Juilliard School. Carlo Maria Giulini, music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, engaged Chung as his assistant in 1978. Two years later on Giulini's recommendation, the orchestra named Chung its associate conductor. In 1984, Chung became music director and principal conductor of the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra in Germany. He made his triumphant New York debut in 1986 conducting the Metropolitan Opera's production of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra. Later in 1986, he also delivered a brilliant performance in Paris of Prokofiev's rarely heard opera The Fiery Angel. In 1987, he was appointed principal guest conductor of the Teatro Communale of Florence, Italy (1987-1992). He received two major Italian awards during this period, the Premio Abbiata and the 1989 Arturo Toscanini Prize. In 1989 Chung became music director of the Opéra-Paris-Bastille. His performances included Messiaen's Saint-François d'Assise and Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District. He became noted for his renditions of the complex music of Messiaen. The composer rewarded Chung by dedicating and entrusting the world premiere of his last work, the Concert à quatre (1994), to him. In 1992, the French government awarded him the Legion of Honor for his contributions to the Paris Opera. This did not prevent an angry parting resulting from a change of administration at the French Ministry of Culture in 1994. He has frequently guest conducted in such venues as La Scala Milan, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and the leading international orchestras. After leaving the Bastille Opera post he has been principal conductor of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the Asia Philharmonic Orchestra.

In the early '80s he began work to present "environmental concerts" to allow the audience to accept environmental problems "with their hearts." He seeks a closer relationship between the two parts of his divided country, and has premiered the music of Isang Yun, a South Korean-born composer with similar views. Chung held concerts to raise money for rice to be shipped to famine-stricken North Korea. When he won the Ho-Am Prize from the Samsung Group (worth $111,000), he donated it all to the Korean Red Cross to alleviate the starvation in North Korea.

He also promotes an anti-drug message in his concerts, leading him in 1992 to be named Ambassador of the Drug Control Program at the United Nations. He was 1995's UNESCO "Man of the Year" and in 1996 won the highest cultural award of the Korean government. He returned to Korea to become music director of the Korean Broadcasting Symphony, and is the first Honorary Cultural Ambassador for Korea.