Eunice Kathleen Waymon, better known by her stage name Nina Simone, was a fifteen-time Grammy Award-nominated american singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger and civil rights activist.

Although she disliked being categorized, Simone is generally classified as a jazz musician; She personally preferred the term “black classical music”. Simone originally aspired to become a classical pianist, but her work covers an eclectic variety of musical styles besides her classical basis, such as jazz, soul, folk, rnb, gospel, and pop music. Her vocal style (with an alto vocal range) is characterized by intense passion, breathiness, and tremolo. Sometimes known as the High Priestess of Soul, she paid great attention to the musical expression of emotions. Within one album or concert she could fluctuate between exuberant happiness or tragic melancholy. These fluctuations also characterized her own personality and personal life, worsened by a bipolar disorder with which she was diagnosed in the mid-sixties, but was kept secret until 2004

Regina Spektor is a Soviet-born American singer-songwriter and pianist. Her music is associated with the anti-folk scene centered on New York City’s East Village. Spektor has said that she has created 700 songs, but that she rarely writes any of them down. She has also stated that she never aspired to write songs herself, but songs seem to just flow to her. Spektor’s musical style has drawn many comparisons to fellow singer-pianists Tori Amos and Fiona Apple, as well as the vocal stylings of Björk.