Montserrat Caballé    (12 Apr 1933)
née Maria de Montserrat Viviana Concepción Caballé i Folc

Montserrat plays her voice like a finely tuned musical instrument issuing notes of the greatest purity and alternating power with the most remarkably hushed pianissimos.  Bellisima!

Montserrat Caballé is "a Catalan [born in Barcelona, Spain] operatic soprano renowned for her bel canto technique and her interpretations of the roles of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti."

She started amassing merits early in her career when she won the gold medal at the Liceu Conservatory where she studied singing technique. She sang title roles as early as 1962 and made her international debut when she performed in Lucrezia Borgia at Carnegie Hall (NYC). "The day after the New York Times quoted "Callas + Tebaldi = Caballé"." 

Throughout her career Montserrat has performed title roles at world famous opera houses such as La Scala, Covent Garden, the Bolshoi and more.  Remarkably, she has sung "over eighty operatic roles, from baroque opera to Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini, including the Marschallin in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier and the title role in Salome."

Montserrat is also a renown recitalist who often performs the songs of her native land.

Genre: Opera, recital, bel canto, pop

Sources:  (1) 

Freddie Mercury
(5 Sep 1946 - 24 Nov 1991)
née Farrokh Bulsara

Phenomenal!  You take our breath away!  You are missed!  We are blessed because your music will never die!

Born in Zanzibar (now Tanzania) to Indian parents and schooled in Bombay, Freddie Mercury emerged as one of the most famous British musicians, a stellar showman, of all times!

 

Mercury was "best known as the lead singer of the rock band Queen (inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001). He is noted for his vocal abilities and for his live performances. As a songwriter, he composed many international hits, including "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Killer Queen", "Somebody to Love", "We Are the Champions" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". In addition to his work with Queen, he also produced several hits as a solo artist."

"Regarded as one of the greatest singers in popular music, Freddie Mercury possessed a very distinctive voice, including a recorded range of four octaves. Although his speaking voice naturally fell in the baritone range, he delivered most songs in the tenor range and, in some songs, countertenor. Biographer David Bret described his voice as "escalating within a few bars from a deep, throaty rock-growl to tender, vibrant tenor, then on to a high-pitched, almost perfect coloratura, pure and crystalline in the upper reaches." On the other hand, he would often lower the highest notes during live performances. Mercury also claimed never to have had any formal training and suffered from vocal nodules. Catalan soprano Montserrat Caballé, with whom Mercury recorded an album expressed her opinion that "the difference between Freddie and almost all the other rock stars was that he was selling the voice." "

"Mercury wrote ten out of the seventeen songs on Queen's Greatest Hits album." "The most notable aspect of his songwriting involved the wide range of different genres that he used, which included, among other styles, rockabilly, heavy metal and disco." "Compared to many popular songwriters, Mercury also tended to write musically complex material. For example, "Bohemian Rhapsody" is acyclic in structure and comprises dozens of chords. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", on the other hand, contains only a few chords." "He wrote most of his songs on the piano and used a wide variety of different key signatures."

"Mercury, who was of Indian Parsi descent and who grew up in India, has been referred to as "Britain's first Asian pop star." "... "Time Asia named Mercury as one of the most influential Asian heroes of the past 60 years."

Genre: Rock, dance/disco, glam rock, hard rock, heavy metal,pop rock, progressive rock,  psychedelic rock, country, ragtime, opera, gospel, vaudeville and folk.

Sources:  (1)