Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

Louis Gardner Lane (December 25, 1923 – February 15, 2016) was an American conductor. He was born in Eagle Pass, Texas. He studied composition with Kent Kennan at the University of Texas at Austin where he earned his bachelor's in music degree in 1943, and with Bohuslav Martinů at the Tanglewood Music Center (summer 1946), and with Bernard Rogers at the Eastman School of Music (master's degree in music, 1947). He also studied opera with Sarah Caldwell (1950).
He was apprentice conductor to George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra in 1947. He became assistant conductor there 1955-1960 and associate conductor 1960-1970 and resident conductor 1970-1973. A comment made by George Szell to Lane in 1957 about the eccentric pianist Glenn Gould became quite famous: “That nut’s a genius”. Gould requested Lane to accompany his subsequent performances in Cleveland, and Lane's Canadian conducting debut was made in 1960 at the Vancouver Festival with Gould.
Lane's programming with the Cleveland Orchestra led to his receiving two major awards, the Mahler Medal and the Ditson Conductor's Award.He was music director of the Akron Symphony Orchestra 1959-1983 (later becoming their conductor emeritus) and the Lake Erie Opera Theatre 1964-1972. He was principal guest conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and held other positions with that group 1973-1978. He is given credit for developing that orchestra into a full-time group with a 52-week contract.He was co-conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra 1977-1983. He was also principal guest conductor 1982-1983 and principal conductor 1984-1985 of the National Symphony Orchestra of the South African Broadcasting Corporation based in Johannesburg.
He was adjunct professor at the University of Akron 1969-1983 and a visiting professor at the University of Cincinnati 1973-1975. Lane served as artistic adviser and conductor at the Cleveland Institute of Music for over 20 years from 1982 through 2004 after which he served as faculty emeritus. He received an honorary doctorate from the same institution in 1995.He was also director of orchestra studies at Oberlin College 1995-1998 and at The University of Texas at Austin 1989-1992.

Haaken Andreas Christensen (16 February 1924 – 9 April 2008) was a Norwegian art historian, art collector and gallerist.
He was born in Kristiania to Arne Christensen and Ingeborg Wiese.Christensen graduated in art history from the University of Oslo in 1955. He opened his own gallery in Oslo in 1961, Galleri Haaken, which he was running for about forty years. Among his works is his thesis about Gustave Courbet, two books about Olivier Debré, essays on Serge Poliakoff, Horst Janssen and Alfred Manessier, and the memoir book En gallerists erindringer from 1985. He was decorated Knight of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Valérie Bonneton (born 5 April 1970) is a French actress.

Boris Taslitzky, sometimes Boris Tazlitsky (September 30, 1911 – December 9, 2005), was a French painter with left-wing sympathies, best known for his figurative depictions of some difficult moments in the history of the twentieth century. His work is considered as representative of Socialist realism in art in France.

Nora Gubisch (born Paris, 1971) is a French operatic mezzo-soprano. She is married to the pianist and conductor Alain Altinoglu.

Dorothée Gilbert (born 25 September 1983) is a principal dancer with the Paris Opera Ballet.

Muriel Cerf (4 June 1950 – 19 May 2012) was a French novelist and travel writer.Her first book, L'Antivoyage, was inspired by her travels in Southeast Asia, and was a major critical success. She was awarded the Prix Littéraire Valery Larbaud in 1975 for Le Diable vert.

Henry de Lumley (born 1934 in Marseille) is a French archeologist, geologist and prehistorian. He is director of the Institute of Human Paleontology in Paris, and Professor Emeritus at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. He is also a corresponding member of the Academy of Humanities of the Institute of France and former director of the French National Museum of Natural History. He is best known for his work on archeological sites in France and Spain, notably Arago cave in Tautavel, Southern France, Terra Amata in Nice and Grotte du Lazaret near Nice, and Baume Bonne at Quinson, where some of the earliest evidence of man in Europe were found.

Louis Langrée (born 11 January 1961) is a French conductor. He is the son of organist and theorist Alain Langrée.

Claude Hagège (French: [aʒɛʒ]; born 1 January 1936) is a French linguist.