Alan Walker is professor Emeritus at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Before going to Canada, he worked in the Music Division of the BBC in London. He is the author of several books of musical criticism and analysis including Hans von Bülow: a Life and Times, Reflections on Liszt, and Liszt: v. 3. The Final Years, to name a few. He has organized numerous Liszt festivals and symposia in the United States and Canada. For his contributions to Liszt scholarship, the government of Hungary awarded him the Pro Cultura Hungarica medal.

Pat Shipman is a professor of anthropology at Penn State University and coauthor of the award-winning The Ape in the Tree and The Wisdom of Bones. Her other works include The Man Who Found the Missing Link, Taking Wing, and To the Heart of the Nile. She writes for American Scientist and lives in Pennsylvania.