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Alessandro Safina
Alessandro Safina
Italian tenor
1
Mario Frangoulis
Mario Frangoulis
Greek singer
2
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber
English composer and impresario of musical theatre (born 1948)
3
Erkan Aki
Erkan Aki
singer
4
Jackie Evancho
Jackie Evancho
American singer
5
Andrea Bocelli
Andrea Bocelli
Italian tenor and singer-songwriter
6
Tarja Turunen
Tarja Turunen
Finnish opera/symphonic rock singer
7
Katherine Jenkins
Katherine Jenkins
Welsh classical crossover singer
8
Chris Mann
Chris Mann
singer
9
Sissel Kyrkjebø
Sissel Kyrkjebø
Norwegian soprano
10
Michael Ball
Michael Ball
English singer and actor
11
Sarah McLachlan
Sarah McLachlan
Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter
12
Emmy Rossum
Emmy Rossum
American actress and singer-songwriter
13
Anne Akiko Meyers
Anne Akiko Meyers
American concert violinist
14
Lesley Garrett
Lesley Garrett
English soprano singer, musician, broadcaster and media personality
15
Josh Groban
Josh Groban
American musician
16
Hayley Westenra
Hayley Westenra
New Zealand singer
17
Carly Simon
Carly Simon
American singer-songwriter, musician and author
18
Walter Murphy
Walter Murphy
American musician
19
Jenny Oaks Baker
Jenny Oaks Baker
American violinist
20
Jonathan Antoine
Jonathan Antoine
British singer
21
Amy Grant
Amy Grant
American musician
Sarah Brightman
British soprano, musical theatre actress, and dancer

Sarah Brightman

Sarah Brightman (born 14 August 1960) is a British classical crossover soprano, singer, songwriter, actress, dancer and musician.

Brightman began her career as a member of the dance troupe Hot Gossip and released several disco singles as a solo performer. In 1981, she made her West End musical theatre debut in Cats and met composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, whom she later married. She went on to star in several West End and Broadway musicals, including The Phantom of the Opera, where she originated the role of Christine Daaé. Her original London cast album of Phantom was released in CD format in 1987 and sold 40 million copies worldwide, making it the biggest-selling cast album ever.

After retiring from the stage and divorcing Lloyd Webber, Brightman resumed her music career with former Enigma producer Frank Peterson, this time as a classical crossover artist. She has been credited as the creator and remains among the most prominent performers of this genre, with worldwide sales of more than 25 million albums and two million DVDs, establishing herself as the world's best-selling soprano.

Brightman's 1996 duet with the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, "Time to Say Goodbye", topped the charts all over Europe and became the highest and fastest-selling single of all-time in Germany, where it stayed at the top of the charts for 14 consecutive weeks and sold over three million copies. It subsequently became an international success, selling 12 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all-time. She has collected over 200 gold and platinum record awards in 38 different countries. In 2010, she was named by Billboard the fifth most influential and best-selling classical artist of the 2000s decade in the US and according to Nielsen SoundScan, she has sold 6.5 million albums in the country.

Brightman is the first artist to have been invited twice to perform the theme song at the Olympic Games, first at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games where she sang "Amigos Para Siempre" with the Spanish tenor José Carreras with an estimated global audience of a billion people, and 16 years later in 2008 in Beijing, this time with Chinese singer Liu Huan, performing the song "You and Me" to an estimated four billion people worldwide.

In 2012, Brightman was appointed as the UNESCO Artist for Peace for the period 2012–2014, for her "commitment to humanitarian and charitable causes, her contribution, throughout her artistic career, to the promotion of cultural dialogue and the exchanges among cultures, and her dedication to the ideals and aims of the Organization". Since 2010, Brightman has been Panasonic's global brand ambassador.

In 2014, she began training for a journey to the International Space Station, later postponed until further notice, citing personal reasons. Brightman was awarded the decoration 'Cavaliere' in the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic on 2 June 2016 and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Hertfordshire in 2018, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to music and theater.