Margrit Biever Mondavi, 1925-, arts promoter. Born in Walzenhausen, Canton Appenzell Ausserrhoden, but grew up in Canton Ticino, attending art school in Minusio. She joined the Robert Mondavi Winery in the Napa Valley in 1967, the year after it was established, and married its founder, Robert Mondavi, in 1980. She is vice-president of cultural affairs at the winery. The Mondavi couple founded the American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, and support a number of institutions promoting arts and culture, including arts education.

Ernest Bloch, 1880-1957,  musician. Born in Geneva, studie in the Brussels Conservatory and with various teachers in Germany. Went to the US on tour in 1916, and subsequently took up teaching positions in New York, Cleveland and San Francisco. Became a US citizen in 1924, but returned to Switzerland in 1930. Rising anti-semitism in Europe led him to return to the US definitively in 1939. In 1840 he was appointed Music Professor at the University of Berkeley. Some of his best known works were strongly influenced by Jewish tradition. His music is notable for its wide range of styles.

Sylvie Courvoisier, 1968-, musician. Born and grew up in Lausanne. Studied jazz at the Montreux Conservatory, and Classical Music at the Lausanne Conservatory. Since 1998 she has been based in Brooklyn, where she is active as both a pianist and a composer. She has been commissioned to write music for concerts, radio, dance and theater, and has performed both solo and playing with numerous other artists. In 1996 she won the Swiss Young Creators Prize and in 2000 the Zonta club Creation Award. 

Al Dubin, 1891 - 1945

Rudolph Ganz, 1877-1972, musician and composer. Born in Zurich, he made his first concert appearance as a cellist at the age of 10. He studied at a number of conservatories in Europe, and in 1901 was appointed head ot the piano department at the Chicago Musical College. From 1921 to 1927 he was conductor of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, but his love of contemporary music – by such composers as Stravinsky, Mahler and Schoenberg - led to calls for his dismissal. He then returned to Chicago where he became director of the Musical College. It is said that Ganz could trace his ancestry back to Charlemagne.

Jewel (full name: Jewel Kilcher), 1974-

Cyndi Lauper (born Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper), 1953-

Ernst Levy, 1895-1981, pianist. Born in Basel. Moved to Paris in 1920, where he promoted choral music and founded the Choeur Philharmoniquenin 1928. Moved to the US in 1941 as a result of the worsening situation for Jews in Europe, and held professorships at a number prestigious institutions including the New England Conservatory, Bennington College, the University of Chicago,  Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brooklyn College. He taught piano and composition, as well as conducting, performing and composing. On retirement in 1966 he returned to Switzerland where he remained for the rest of his life.

Adolf Rickenbacker (Adolph Rickenbacher), 1886-1939, father of the electric guitar. Born in Canton Schwyz, he immigrated to the US as a child, and moved to  Los Angeles in 1928. His Rickenbacker Manufacturing Company made components for guitar makers. Together with two partners he formed a new company in 1931, which made the first mass-produced electric guitar. The guitar owed its success to its effective electromagnetic pickup. Rickenbacker sold the company and the name in 1953. He was a distant relative of Eddie Rickenbacker. 

Daniel Schnyder, 1961-, musician. Born in Zurich, studied flute at the conservatory in Winterthur, and saxophone and jazz composition at Boston's Berklee College of Music. His work combines classical music with jazz, and he has also worked with Arab, Latin American and African musicians. In 1996 he won the first prize at the International Trumpet Guild Composition Contest, for his “music for brass instruments.” He is not only a composer, but also plays as a soloist with orchestras and jazz bands. His opera “Casanova” was premiered at the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, Switzerland, in 2005. He is "composer in residence" of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He lives in New York City.

Louis Soutter, 1871-1942, musician and painter. Born in Morges, Canton Vaud. He broke off his studies first in engineering and then in architecture to study the violin in Brussels. He also failed to complete this course, and returned to Switzerland in 1894 to study drawing and painting. He moved to the US in 1897, and settled in Colorado Springs with his American wife, where he was appointed head of the new Art Department in Colorado College. In 1903 his marriage ended, and he returned to Switzerland, where he joined the orchestras of Lausanne, then of Geneva. His behavior became ever more eccentric. In 1923 his family sent him to a home in the village of Ballaigues in Canton Vaud. Despite finding no encouragement for his work, he continued painting until his death.