File:Sibelius - Finlandia, Op. 26 opening motive.png

Opening motive.^[1]  Play (help·info)

Finlandia, Op. 26 is a symphonic poem by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The first version was written in 1899, and it was revised in 1900. The piece was composed for the Press Celebrations of 1899, a covert protest against increasing censorship from the Russian Empire, as the last of seven pieces, each performed as an accompaniment to a tableau depicting episodes from Finnish history.^[2]

The premiere was on 2 July 1900 in Helsinki with the Helsinki Philharmonic Society conducted by Robert Kajanus.^[3] A typical performance takes anywhere from 7½ to 9 minutes.

A recurrent joke within Finland at this time was the renaming of Finlandia at various musical concerts so as to avoid Russian censorship. Titles under which the piece masqueraded were numerous, a famously flippant example being Happy Feelings at the awakening of Finnish Spring.

Most of the piece is taken up with rousing and turbulent music, evoking the national struggle of the Finnish people. But towards the end, a calm comes over the orchestra, and the serenely melodic Finlandia Hymn is heard. Often incorrectly cited as a traditional folk melody, the Hymn section is of Sibelius's own creation.^[4]

Although initially composed for orchestra, in 1900 Sibelius arranged the entire work for solo piano.^[3][5]

Sibelius later reworked the Finlandia Hymn into a stand-alone piece. This hymn, with words written in 1941 by Veikko Antero Koskenniemi, is one of the most important national songs of Finland (though Maamme is the national anthem). With different words, it is also sung as a Christian hymn (Be Still, My Soul), and was the national anthem of the short-lived African state of Biafra (Land of the Rising Sun).

Recent use[link]

• Finnish film director Renny Harlin featured Finlandia prominently in the film score for his 1990 film Die Hard 2: Die Harder.
• Finlandia is used for a love scene in Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers! by Russ Meyer.
• Finnish symphonic power metal band Nightwish has used Finlandia as an intro to their live concerts, such as shows that are a part of their Imaginaerum World Tour.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Finlandia: Free scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Full score of a number of Sibelius's tone poems, including this piece

Portrait of Jean Sibelius from 1913

Jean Sibelius ( pronunciation (help·info); 8 December 1865 – 20 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period. His music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."^[1]

The core of Sibelius's oeuvre is his set of seven symphonies. Like Beethoven, Sibelius used each successive work to further develop his own personal compositional style. His works continue to be performed frequently in the concert hall and are often recorded.

In addition to the symphonies, Sibelius's best-known compositions include Finlandia, the Karelia Suite, Valse triste, the Violin Concerto in D minor and The Swan of Tuonela (one of the four movements of the Lemminkäinen Suite). Other works include pieces inspired by the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala; over 100 songs for voice and piano; incidental music for 13 plays; the opera Jungfrun i tornet (The Maiden in the Tower); chamber music; piano music; Masonic ritual music;^[2] and 21 separate publications of choral music.

Sibelius composed prolifically until the mid-1920s. However, after completing his Seventh Symphony (1924), the incidental music to The Tempest (1926), and the tone poem Tapiola (1926), he produced no large scale works for the remaining thirty years of his life. Although he is reputed to have stopped composing, he in fact attempted to continue writing, including abortive efforts to compose an eighth symphony. He wrote some Masonic music and re-edited some earlier works during this last period of his life, and retained an active interest in new developments in music, although he did not always view modern music favorably.

The Finnish 100 mark bill featured his image until it was taken out of circulation in 2002.^[3] Since 2011, Finland celebrates a Flag Day on 8 December, the composer's birthday, also known as the 'Day of Finnish Music'.^[4]

Life and work[link]

Johan Julius Christian Sibelius was born in Hämeenlinna in the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland, the son of Swedish-speaking MD Christian Gustaf Sibelius and Maria Charlotta Sibelius née Borg. Although known by a typical Finnish and Swedish name "Janne" to his family, during his student years he began using the French form of his name, "Jean", inspired by the business card of his seafaring uncle.^[5] He is now universally known as Jean Sibelius.

Jean´s younger brother Christian Sibelius (1869-1922), MD, University Professor and head of Lapinlahti Asylum, was a psychiatrist and founder of modern psychiatry in Finland.

The rapid rise of Romantic Nationalism in Europe was inspired by the philosophy of Hegel and had a profound effect on educational systems in Europe. The gradual demise of Latin was accompanied by opportunities to study more native languages. In Finland this meant either Finnish or Swedish, which became part of the syllabus, from elementary school up to university. Young Janne Sibelius went to the Finnish-speaking Hämeenlinnan normaalilyseo, which he attended from 1876 to 1885. His home language remained though Swedish all his life. Romantic Nationalism was to become a crucial element in Sibelius' artistic output and his political leanings. From around the age of 15, he set his heart on becoming a great violin virtuoso, and he did become quite an accomplished player of the instrument, even publicly performing the last two movements of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in Helsinki.

Sibelius in 1889.

After Sibelius graduated from high school in 1885, he began to study law at the Imperial Alexander University of Finland (now the University of Helsinki). However, he was more interested in music than in law, and he soon quit his studies. From 1885 to 1889 Sibelius studied music in the Helsinki music school (now the Sibelius Academy). One of his teachers there was Martin Wegelius. Sibelius continued studying in Berlin (from 1889 to 1890 with Albert Becker) and in Vienna (from 1890 to 1891). It was around this time that he finally abandoned his cherished violin playing aspirations: "It was a very painful awakening when I had to admit that I had begun my training for the exacting career of a virtuoso too late".

According to Sibelius's biographer Erik Tawaststjerna, he was an enthusiastic Wagnerian at the beginning of the 1890s but then began to feel disgust for his music, calling it pompous and vulgar.

On 10 June 1892, Jean Sibelius married Aino Järnefelt (1871–1969) at Maxmo. Their home, called Ainola, was completed at Lake Tuusula, Järvenpää in 1903. They had six daughters: Eva, Ruth, Kirsti (who died at a very young age), Katarina, Margareta and Heidi. Eva married an industrial heir Arvi Paloheimo and became later herself the CEO of the Paloheimo Corporation. Ruth Snellman was a prominent actress, Katarina Ilves wife of a banker, and Heidi Blomstedt a designer, her husband Aulis Blomstedt being an architect. Margareta married the conductor Jussi Jalas, previously Blomstedt, Aulis Blomstedt´s brother.

In 1908, Sibelius underwent a serious operation for suspected throat cancer. The impact of this brush with death has been said to have inspired works that he composed in the following years, including Luonnotar and the Fourth Symphony.

Sibelius spent long periods abroad studying in Vienna and Berlin 1889-91 and 1900-1901 with family in Italy. He composed, conducted and socialized actively in Scandinavian Countries, UK, France and Germany. In 1914 he was the composer of the year in Norfolk Music Festival in USA, Conn., premiering there his symphonic poem The Oceanids commissioned by the millionaire Carl Stoeckel.^[6] Sibelius met the Ex President Taft in Washington DC and visited also shortly Canada. He had five tours in England 1905-1922. After 1930 he did not travel abroad any more. Instead he became a representative figure of the Finnish Music and received a constant flow of dignitaries and delegations in Ainola until his last days.

When freemasonry was revived in Finland, having been forbidden during the Russian sovereignty, Sibelius was one of the founding members of Suomi Lodge Nr 1 in 1922 and later the Grand Organist of the Grand Lodge of Finland. He composed the ritual music used in Finland (op 113) in 1927 and added two new pieces composed 1946. The new revision of the ritual music of 1948 is one of his last works.^[7]

Sibelius loved nature, and the Finnish landscape often served as material for his music. He once said of his Sixth Symphony, "[It] always reminds me of the scent of the first snow." The forests surrounding Ainola are often said to have inspired his composition of Tapiola. On the subject of Sibelius's ties to nature, one biographer of the composer, Erik W. Tawaststjerna, wrote the following:

Even by Nordic standards, Sibelius responded with exceptional intensity to the moods of nature and the changes in the seasons: he scanned the skies with his binoculars for the geese flying over the lake ice, listened to the screech of the cranes, and heard the cries of the curlew echo over the marshy grounds just below Ainola. He savoured the spring blossoms every bit as much as he did autumnal scents and colours.^[8]

Sibelius in 1939

The grave in the garden of Ainola. Bronze memorial by the son-in-law of Sibelius, Aulis Blomstedt.

The year 1926 saw a sharp and lasting decline in Sibelius's output: after his Seventh Symphony he only produced a few major works in the rest of his life. Arguably the two most significant were incidental music for Shakespeare's The Tempest and the tone poem Tapiola. For most of the last thirty years of his life, Sibelius even avoided talking about his music publicly.

There is substantial evidence that Sibelius worked on an eighth numbered symphony. He promised the premiere of this symphony to Serge Koussevitzky in 1931 and 1932, and a London performance in 1933 under Basil Cameron was even advertised to the public. However, the only concrete evidence for the symphony's existence on paper are a 1933 bill for a fair copy of the first movement and short draft fragments first published and played 2011.^[9][10] Sibelius had always been quite self-critical; he remarked to his close friends, "If I cannot write a better symphony than my Seventh, then it shall be my last." Since no manuscript survives, sources consider it likely that Sibelius destroyed most traces of the score, probably in 1945, during which year he certainly consigned a great many papers to the flames.^[11] His wife Aino recalled,

"In the 1940s there was a great auto da fé at Ainola. My husband collected a number of the manuscripts in a laundry basket and burned them on the open fire in the dining room. Parts of the Karelia Suite were destroyed – I later saw remains of the pages which had been torn out – and many other things. I did not have the strength to be present and left the room. I therefore do not know what he threw on to the fire. But after this my husband became calmer and gradually lighter in mood."^[1]

On 1 January 1939, Sibelius participated in an international radio broadcast which included the composer conducting his Andante Festivo. The performance was preserved on transcription discs and later issued on CD. This is probably the only surviving example of Sibelius interpreting his own music.^[12]

Since 1903 Sibelius had lived in the country, but 1939-1944 Jean and Aino had again a residence in Helsinki. After the war he came to the city only a couple of times. The so called "Silence of Ainola" appears a myth, knowing that in addition to countless official vistors and visiting colleagues also his grandchildren and great grandchildren spent their holidays in Ainola.

Sibelius avoided public statements of other composers, but Tawaststjerna and Sibelius´secretary Santeri Levas have documented his private conversations in which he considered Bartók and Schostakowich the most talented composers of the younger generations. In 1950´ he promoted actively the young Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara.

His 90th birthday, in 1955, was widely celebrated and both the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham gave special performances of his music in Finland. The orchestras and their conductors also met the composer at his home; a series of memorable photographs were taken to commemorate the occasions. Both Columbia Records and EMI released some of the pictures with albums of Sibelius's music. Beecham was honored by the Finnish government for his efforts to promote Sibelius both in the United Kingdom and in the United States.

Tawaststjerna also related an endearing anecdote regarding Sibelius's death:

[He] was returning from his customary morning walk. Exhilarated, he told his wife Aino that he had seen a flock of cranes approaching. "There they come, the birds of my youth," he exclaimed. Suddenly, one of the birds broke away from the formation and circled once above Ainola. It then rejoined the flock to continue its journey. Two days afterwards Sibelius died of a brain hemorrhage, at age 91 (on 20 September 1957), in Ainola, where he is buried in the garden. Another well-known Finnish composer, Heino Kaski, died that same day. Aino lived there for the next twelve years until she died on 8 June 1969; she is buried with her husband.^[8]

In 1972, Sibelius's surviving daughters sold Ainola to the State of Finland. The Ministry of Education and the Sibelius Society of Finland opened it as a museum in 1974. In 2011, a fragment was discovered of what appeared to be an early draft of the missing eighth symphony.^[13]

Musical style[link]

Like many of his contemporaries, Sibelius was initially enamored of the music of Wagner. A performance of Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival had a strong effect on him, inspiring him to write to his wife shortly thereafter, "Nothing in the world has made such an impression on me, it moves the very strings of my heart." He studied the scores of Wagner's operas Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, and Die Walküre intently. With this music in mind, Sibelius began work on an opera of his own, entitled Veneen luominen (The Building of the Boat).

However, his appreciation for Wagner waned and Sibelius ultimately rejected Wagner's Leitmotif compositional technique, considering it to be too deliberate and calculated. Departing from opera, he later used the musical material from the incomplete Veneen luominen in his Lemminkäinen Suite (1893). He did, however, compose a considerable number of songs for voice and piano, whose early interpreters included Aino Ackté and particularly Ida Ekman.

More lasting influences included Ferruccio Busoni, Anton Bruckner and Tchaikovsky. Hints of Tchaikovsky's music are particularly evident in works such as Sibelius's First Symphony (1899) and his Violin Concerto (1905). Similarities to Bruckner are most strongly felt in the 'unmixed' timbral palette and sombre brass chorales of Sibelius's orchestration, a fondness for pedal points, and in the underlying slow pace of the music.

Sibelius progressively stripped away formal markers of sonata form in his work and, instead of contrasting multiple themes, he focused on the idea of continuously evolving cells and fragments culminating in a grand statement. His later works are remarkable for their sense of unbroken development, progressing by means of thematic permutations and derivations. The completeness and organic feel of this synthesis has prompted some to suggest that Sibelius began his works with a finished statement and worked backwards, although analyses showing these predominantly three- and four-note cells and melodic fragments as they are developed and expanded into the larger "themes" effectively prove the opposite.^[14]

Portrait of Sibelius from 1894 by Eero Järnefelt

This self-contained structure stood in stark contrast to the symphonic style of Gustav Mahler, Sibelius's primary rival in symphonic composition. While thematic variation played a major role in the works of both composers, Mahler's style made use of disjunct, abruptly changing and contrasting themes, while Sibelius sought to slowly transform thematic elements. In November 1907 Mahler undertook a conducting tour of Finland, and the two composers had occasion to go on a lengthy walk together. Sibelius later reported that during the walk:

However, the two rivals did find common ground in their music. Like Mahler, Sibelius made frequent use both of folk music and of literature in the composition of his works. The Second Symphony's slow movement was sketched from the motive of Il Commendatore in Don Giovanni, while the stark Fourth Symphony combined work for a planned "Mountain" symphony with a tone poem based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven". Sibelius also wrote several tone poems based on Finnish poetry, beginning with the early En Saga and culminating in the late Tapiola (1926), his last major composition.

Over time, he sought to use new chord patterns, including naked tritones (for example in the Fourth Symphony), and bare melodic structures to build long movements of music, in a manner similar to Joseph Haydn's use of built-in dissonances. Sibelius would often alternate melodic sections with noble brass chords that would swell and fade away, or he would underpin his music with repeating figures which push against the melody and counter-melody.

Sibelius's melodies often feature powerful modal implications: for example much of the Sixth Symphony is in the (modern) Dorian mode. Sibelius studied Renaissance polyphony, as did his contemporary, the Danish composer Carl Nielsen, and Sibelius's music often reflects the influence of this early music. He often varied his movements in a piece by changing the note values of melodies, rather than the conventional change of tempi. He would often draw out one melody over a number of notes, while playing a different melody in shorter rhythm. For example, his Seventh Symphony comprises four originally sketched movements fused into telescopical and partly parallel functions without pause, where every important theme is in C major or C minor; the variation comes from the time and rhythm. His harmonic language was often restrained, even iconoclastic, compared to many of his contemporaries who were already experimenting with musical Modernism. As reported by Neville Cardus in the Manchester Guardian newspaper in 1958,

Reception[link]

Sibelius exerted considerable influence on symphonic composers and musical life, at least in English-speaking and Nordic countries. Finnish symphonist Leevi Madetoja was a pupil of Sibelius. In Britain, Vaughan Williams and Arnold Bax both dedicated their 5th symphonies to Sibelius. Furthermore, Tapiola is prominently echoed in both Bax's Sixth Symphony and Moeran's Symphony in G Minor. The influence of Sibelius's compositional procedures is also strongly felt in the First Symphony of William Walton.^[17] When these and several other major British symphonic essays were being written in and around the 1930s, Sibelius's music was very much in vogue, with conductors like Beecham and Barbirolli championing its cause both in the concert hall and on record. Walton's composer friend Constant Lambert even claimed that Sibelius was "the first great composer since Beethoven whose mind thinks naturally in terms of symphonic form".^[18] Earlier, Granville Bantock had championed Sibelius (the esteem was mutual: Sibelius dedicated his Third Symphony to the English composer, and in 1946 he became the first President of the Bantock Society). More recently, Sibelius was also one of the composers championed by Robert Simpson. Malcolm Arnold acknowledged his influence, and Arthur Butterworth continues to see Sibelius's music as a source of inspiration in his own work.^[19]

Eugene Ormandy and, to a lesser extent, his predecessor Leopold Stokowski, were instrumental in bringing Sibelius's music to American audiences by programming his works often; the former developed a friendly relationship with Sibelius throughout his life. Later in life he was championed by critic Olin Downes, who wrote a biography of the composer.

In 1938 Theodor Adorno wrote a critical essay about the composer, notoriously charging that "If Sibelius is good, this invalidates the standards of musical quality that have persisted from Bach to Schoenberg: the richness of inter-connectedness, articulation, unity in diversity, the 'multi-faceted' in 'the one'."^[20] Adorno sent his essay to Virgil Thomson, then music critic of the New York Herald Tribune, who was also critical of Sibelius; Thomson, while agreeing with the essay's sentiment, declared to Adorno that "the tone of it [was] more apt to create antagonism toward [Adorno] than toward Sibelius".^[1] Later, the composer, theorist and conductor René Leibowitz went so far as to describe Sibelius as "the worst composer in the world" in the title of a 1955 pamphlet.^[21]

Sibelius has sometimes been criticized^{[by whom?]} as a reactionary or even incompetent figure in 20th century classical music. Despite the innovations of the Second Viennese School, he continued to write in a strictly tonal idiom. Although Sibelius's music is considered by some critics to be insufficiently complex, he was immediately respected even by some of his more progressive peers.^[who?] Critics^[who?] who have sought to re-evaluate Sibelius's music have cited its self-contained internal structure, which distills everything down to a few motivic ideas and then permits the music to grow organically, as evidence of a previously under-appreciated radical bent to his work. The severe nature of Sibelius's orchestration is often noted^{[by whom?]} as representing a "Finnish" character, stripping away the superfluous from music.

Evaluating Sibelius for The Washington Post, music critic Tim Page opined, "There are two things to be said straightaway about Sibelius. First, he is terribly uneven (much of his chamber music, a lot of his songs and most of his piano music might have been churned out by a second-rate salon composer from the 19th century on an off afternoon). Second, at his very best, he is often weird."^[22] Perhaps one reason Sibelius has attracted both the praise and the ire of critics is that in each of his seven symphonies he approached the basic problems of form, tonality, and architecture in unique, individual ways. On the one hand, his symphonic (and tonal) creativity was novel, but others thought that music should be taking a different route. Sibelius's response to criticism was dismissive: "Pay no attention to what critics say. No statue has ever been put up to a critic."

In the latter decades of the twentieth century, Sibelius began to be re-assessed more favourably: Milan Kundera dubbed the composer's approach to be that of "antimodern modernism", standing outside the perpetual progression of the status quo.^[1] In 1990, the composer Thea Musgrave was commissioned by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra to write a piece in honour of the 125th anniversary of Sibelius's birth: Song of the Enchanter was premiered on 14 February 1991.^[23] In 1984, American avant-garde composer Morton Feldman gave a lecture in Darmstadt, Germany, wherein he stated that "the people you think are radicals might really be conservatives – the people you think are conservatives might really be radical," whereupon he began to hum Sibelius' Fifth Symphony.^[1]

Sibelius has fallen in and out of fashion, but remains one of the most popular 20th century symphonists, both in the concert hall and on record. Sibelius had spent much time producing profitable chamber music for home use, salon music, occasional works for the stage and other incidental music, all of which has now been systematically recorded on BIS Records' complete Sibelius Edition. This major editorial project to record every note Sibelius left us also encompasses surviving sketches and early versions of the major works.

Selected works[link]

These are ordered chronologically; the date is the date of composition rather than publication or first performance.

Orchestral works[link]

Other works[link]

• Viisi joululaulua, Op. 1, five Christmas songs (1895–1913)
• Seven Songs, Op. 17, with lyrics by J. L. Runeberg, K.A. Tavaststjerna, Oscar Levertin, A.V. Forsman (Koskimies, Finnish surname), and Ilmari Calamnius (Kianto, Finnish surname). Composed between 1891 and 1904.
• Incidental music to Hjalmar Procopé's play Belshazzar's Feast, Op. 51 (1906)
• Voces intimae, Op. 56, string quartet (1909)
• Jäger March (Jääkärimarssi) (1915)

Media[link]

	Valse Triste Conductor: Simon Schindler Ensemble: Fulda Symphonic Orchestra Location: Großer Saal der Orangerie, Fulda (Germany) Date: 18 March 2001 Size: 6468KB
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

See also[link]

• International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition
• Mozart and Freemasonry
• Sibelius monument

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Burnett-James, David (1989). Sibelius. London, New York: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-1683-7. 
• Pike, Lionel (1978). Beethoven, Sibelius and 'the Profound Logic': Studies in Symphonic Analysis. London: Athlone Press. ISBN 0-485-11178-0. 
• Ekman, Karl (1972). Jean Sibelius, His Life and Personality. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-8371-6027-8. 

Further reading[link]

• Ekman, Karl. "Jean Sibelius, His Life and Personality". New York, Tudor Publishing Co., 1945.
• Levas, Santeri. Sibelius: a personal portrait. London, Dent, 1972. ISBN 0-460-03978-4.
• Tawaststjerna, Erik. "Sibelius" (transl. Layton, Robert). London, Faber & Faber, vol.1, 1865–1905 (1976), vol.2, 1904–1914 (1986), vol. 3, 1914–1957 2008).
• de Gorog, Lisa (with the collaboration of Ralph de Gorog) "From Sibelius to Sallinen: Finnish Nationalism and the Music of Finland". New York, Greenwood Press, 1989.
• Layton, Robert. Sibelius. New York: Schirmer Books, 1993. Master Musicians Series. ISBN 0-02-871322-2.
• Rickards, Guy. Jean Sibelius. London and New York, Phaidon Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0-7148-4776-4.
• Goss, Glenda Jean Sibelius: Guide to Research. New York: Garland Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8153-1171-0
• Tomi Mäkelä: "Poesie in der Luft. Jean Sibelius, Studien zu Leben und Werk". Wiesbaden, Breitkopf & Härtel, 2007. 978-3-7651-0363-6
• Barnett, Andrew. Sibelius. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-300-11159-0
• Tomi Mäkelä: "Jean Sibelius". Woodbridge and Rochester, Boydell, 2011* Minnesota Orchestra's showcase concert magazine, 6 May, page 44
• Morgan, Robert P. (1991) [1990]. "Other European Currents". The Norton Introduction to Music History: Twentieth-Century Music (1st ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 121–123. ISBN 0-393-95272-X. 
• Goss, Glenda Sibelius: A Composer’s Life and the Awakening of Finland. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009. ISBN 0-226-30477-9

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jean Sibelius

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jean Sibelius

Wikisource has the text of a 1922 Encyclopædia Britannica article about Jean Sibelius.

• Jean Sibelius – the website (English)
• The Sibelius Society of Finland
• Fennica Gehrman's Sibelius page (publisher)
• Films on Jean Sibelius by director Christopher Nupen
• Jean Sibelius Museum
• Finlandia by Jean Sibelius, thisisFINLAND
• Ainola – The home of Aino and Jean Sibelius
• Jean Sibelius link collection
• Free scores by Jean Sibelius at the International Music Score Library Project
• Works by or about Jean Sibelius in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Eugene Ormandy – Jean Sibelius: A Reminiscence
• Musical Finland in Brussels
• Free scores by Jean Sibelius in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Veijo Murtomäki, Sibelius, Jean (1865–1957). National Biography of Finland, online collection. 16.9.1997. Finnish Literature Society.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2011)

Don McLean
Don McLean performing at Westport in 2009
Background information
Birth name	Donald McLean
Born	(1945-10-02) October 2, 1945 (age 66)
Genres	Folk, folk rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician
Instruments	Vocals, guitar banjo, piano
Years active	1969–present
Labels	United Artists EMI America
Website	www.don-mclean.com

Donald "Don" McLean (born October 2, 1945, New Rochelle, New York) is an American singer-songwriter. He is most famous for the 1971 album American Pie, containing the renowned songs "American Pie" and "Vincent".

Musical roots[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (June 2011)

Both McLean's grandfather and father were also named Donald McLean. The Buccis, the family of McLean's mother, Elizabeth, came from Abruzzo in central Italy. They left Italy and settled in Port Chester, New York, at the end of the 19th century. He has other extended family in Los Angeles and Boston.^[1]

As a teenager, McLean became interested in folk music, particularly the Weavers' 1955 recording At Carnegie Hall. Childhood asthma meant that McLean missed long periods of school, particularly music lessons, and although he slipped back in his studies, his love of music was allowed to flourish. He often performed shows for family and friends. By age 16 he had bought his first guitar (a Harmony acoustic archtop with a sunburst finish) and begun making contacts in the music business, becoming friends with folk singer Erik Darling, a latter-day member of the Weavers.^[1] McLean recorded his first studio sessions (with singer Lisa Kindred) while still in prep school.

McLean graduated from Iona Preparatory School in 1963, and briefly attended Villanova University, dropping out after four months. While at Villanova he became friends with singer/songwriter Jim Croce.

After leaving Villanova, McLean became associated with famed folk music agent Harold Leventhal, and for the next six years performed at venues and events including the Bitter End and the Gaslight Cafe in New York, the Newport Folk Festival, the Cellar Door in Washington, D.C., and the Troubadour in Los Angeles.^[1] Concurrently, McLean attended night school at Iona College and received a bachelor's degree in business administration in 1968. He turned down a scholarship to Columbia University Graduate School in favor of becoming resident singer at Caffè Lena in Saratoga Springs, New York.

In 1968, with the help of a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, McLean began reaching a wider public, with visits to towns up and down the Hudson River.^[1] He learned the art of performing from his friend and mentor Pete Seeger. McLean accompanied Seeger on his Clearwater boat trip up the Hudson River in 1969 to raise awareness about environmental pollution in the river. During this time McLean wrote songs that would appear on his first album, Tapestry. McLean co-edited the book Songs and Sketches of the First Clearwater Crew with sketches by Thomas B. Allen for which Pete Seeger wrote the foreword. Seeger and McLean sang "Shenandoah" on the 1974 Clearwater album.

Recording career[link]

Early breakthrough[link]

McLean recorded his first album, Tapestry, in 1969 in Berkeley, California during the student riots. After being rejected by 34 labels, the album was released by Mediarts and attracted good reviews but little notice outside the folk community.

McLean's major break came when Mediarts was taken over by United Artists Records thus securing for his second album, American Pie, the promotion of a major label. The album spawned two No. 1 hits in the title song and "Vincent". American Pie's success made McLean an international star and renewed interest in his first album, which charted more than two years after its initial release.

American Pie[link]

McLean's magnum opus, "American Pie", is a sprawling, impressionistic ballad inspired partly by the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J. P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) in a plane crash on 3 February 1959. The song popularized the expression "The Day the Music Died" in reference to this event. WCFL DJ Bob Dearborn unraveled the lyrics and first published his interpretation on 7 January 1972, eight days before the song reached #1 nationally (see "Further reading" under American Pie). Numerous other interpretations, which together largely converged on Dearborn's interpretation, quickly followed. McLean declined to say anything definitive about the lyrics until 1978. Since then McLean has stated that the lyrics are also somewhat autobiographical and present an abstract story of his life from the mid-1950s until the time he wrote the song in the late 1960s.^[2]

The song was recorded on 26 May 1971 and a month later received its first radio airplay on New York’s WNEW-FM and WPLJ-FM to mark the closing of The Fillmore East, a famous New York concert hall. "American Pie" reached number one on the U.S. Billboard magazine charts for four weeks in 1972, and remains McLean's most successful single release. The single also topped the Billboard Easy Listening survey. With a running time of 8:36, it is also the longest song to reach No. 1. Some stations played only part one of the original split-sided single release.

In 2001 "American Pie" was voted No. 5 in a poll of the 365 Songs of the Century compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. The top five were: "Over the Rainbow" written by Harold Arlen and E.Y. "Yip" Harburg (performed by Judy Garland in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz), "White Christmas" written by Irving Berlin (best-known performance by Bing Crosby), "This Land Is Your Land" written and performed by Woody Guthrie, "Respect" written by Otis Redding (best-known performance by Aretha Franklin), and "American Pie".

Subsequent recordings[link]

Personnel from the American Pie album sessions were retained for his third album Don McLean, including producer, Ed Freeman, Rob Rothstein on bass and Warren Bernhardt on piano. The song "The Pride Parade" provides an insight into McLean’s immediate reaction to stardom. McLean told Melody Maker magazine in 1973 that Tapestry was an album by someone previously concerned with external situations. American Pie combines externals with internals and the resultant success of that album makes the third one (Don McLean) entirely introspective."

Other songs written by McLean for the album included “Dreidel” (number 21 on the Billboard chart) and “If We Try” (number 58), which was subsequently recorded by Olivia Newton-John.^[3] “On the Amazon” from the 1920s musical Mr Cinders was an unusual choice but became an audience favorite in concerts and featured in “Till Tomorrow”, a documentary film about McLean produced by Bob Elfstrom. The film shows McLean in concert at Columbia University as he was interrupted by a bomb scare. He left the stage while the audience stood up and checked under their seats for anything that resembled a bomb. After the all-clear, McLean re-appeared and sang “On the Amazon” from exactly where he had left off. Don Heckman reported the bomb scare in his review for the New York Times entitled “Don McLean Survives Two Obstacles.”^[4]

The fourth album, Playin' Favorites was a top-40 hit in the UK in 1973 and included the Irish folk classic, "Mountains of Mourne" and Buddy Holly’s "Everyday", a live rendition of which returned McLean to the UK Singles Chart. McLean said, "The last album (Don McLean) was a study in depression whereas the new one (Playin' Favorites) is almost the quintessence of optimism, with a feeling of "Wow, I just woke up from a bad dream."

The 1974 album Homeless Brother, produced by Joel Dorn, was McLean’s final studio collaboration with United Artists. The album featured fine New York session musicians, including Ralph McDonald on percussion, Hugh McKracken on guitar and a guest appearance by Yusef Lateef on flute. The Persuasions sang the background vocals on “Crying in the Chapel” and Cissy Houston provided a backing vocal on “La La Love You”.

The album’s title song was inspired by Jack Kerouac’s book, The Lonesome Traveller in which Kerouac tells the story of America’s “homeless brothers,” or hobos. The song features background vocals by Pete Seeger.

The song “The Legend of Andrew McCrew” was based on an article published in the New York Times.^[1] concerning a black Dallas hobo named Anderson McCrew who was killed when he leapt from a moving train. No one claimed him, so a carnival took his body, mummified it, and toured all over the South with him, calling him the “The Famous Mummy Man.” McLean’s song inspired radio station WGN in Chicago to tell the story and give the song airplay in order to raise money for a headstone for Anderson McCrew’s grave. Their campaign was successful and McCrew’s body was exhumed and buried in the Lincoln Cemetery in Dallas.^[5] The tombstone had an inscription with words from the fourth verse of McLean’s song:

What a way to live a life, and what a way to die
Left to live a living death with no one left to cry
A petrified amazement, a wonder beyond worth
A man who found more life in death than life gave him at birth

Joel Dorn later collaborated on the Don McLean career retrospective Rearview Mirror released in 2005 on Dorn’s own label Hyena Records. In 2006, Dorn reflected on working with McLean:^[1]

Of the more than 200 studio albums I’ve produced in the past forty plus years, there is a handful; maybe fifteen or so that I can actually listen to from top to bottom. Homeless Brother is one of them. It accomplished everything I set out to do. And it did so because it was a true collaboration. Don brought so much to the project that all I really had to do was capture what he did, and complement it properly when necessary.

Also from the Homeless Brother album, "Wonderful Baby" was a number 1 on the AOR chart in 1975^[6] and was later recorded by Fred Astaire. The song had been inspired by Joel Dorn’s son^[1] and reflected McLean’s interest in 1930s music.

1977 saw a brief liaison with Arista Records that yielded the Prime Time album and, in October 1978, the single "It Doesn’t Matter Anymore". This was a track from the Chain Lightning album that should have been the second of four with Arista.^[1] McLean had started recording in Nashville, with Elvis Presley’s backing singers, The Jordanaires, and many of Elvis’s musicians. However the Arista deal broke down following artistic disagreements between McLean and the Arista chief, Clive Davis. Consequently McLean was left without a record contract in the USA, but through continuing deals the Chain Lightning album was released by EMI in Europe and by Festival Records in Australia. In April 1980, the track "Crying” from the album began picking up airplay on Dutch radio stations and McLean was called to Europe to appear on several important musical variety shows to plug the song and support its release as a single by EMI. The song achieved number 1 status in Holland first, followed by the UK and then Australia.

Don’s number 1 successes in Europe and Australia led to a new deal in the USA with Millennium Records. They issued the Chain Lightning album two and a half years after it had been recorded in Nashville, and two years after its release in Europe. It charted on February 14th, 1981 and reached number 28 while "Crying" climbed to number 5 on the pop singles chart.

The early 1980s saw further chart successes in the US with "Since I Don't Have You", a new recording of "Castles in the Air" and "It's Just the Sun".

In 1987, the release of the country-based Love Tracks album gave rise to the hit singles "Love in My Heart" (a top-10 in Australia), "Can't Blame the Wreck on the Train" (US country No. 49), and "Eventually". The latter two songs were written by Houston native Terri Sharp.

In 1991, EMI reissued the "American Pie" single in the United Kingdom and McLean performed on Top of the Pops.

In 1992, previously unreleased songs became available on Favorites and Rarities while Don McLean Classics featured new studio recordings of "Vincent" and "American Pie".

Don McLean has continued to record new material including River of Love in 1995 on Curb Records and, more recently, the albums You've Got to Share, Don McLean Sings Marty Robbins and The Western Album on his own Don McLean Music label.

A new album, Addicted to Black, was released in May 2009 and is available for purchase at his North American concert performances and is available on his website. In addition, McLean is expecting to tour in Europe and Australia in 2010.^[7]

Other songs[link]

McLean's other well-known songs include:

• "And I Love You So" was covered by Elvis Presley, Helen Reddy, Shirley Bassey, Glen Campbell, Engelbert Humperdinck, Howard Keel and a 1973 hit for Perry Como
• "Vincent", a tribute to the 19th century Dutch painter, Vincent van Gogh. Although it only reached #12 on the Billboard Hot 100, it proved to be a huge hit worldwide.^{[citation needed]} It was a #1 hit single in the UK Singles Chart.^[8] This song was covered by NOFX on their album titled 45 or 46 Songs That Weren't Good Enough to Go on Our Other Records, and also appears on the Fat Wreck Chords compilation Survival of the Fattest. "Vincent" was also covered by Josh Groban on his 2001 debut album.^[9]
• "Castles in the Air", which McLean recorded twice. His 1981 re-recording was a top-40 hit, reaching #36 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1981.^[10]
• "Wonderful Baby", a tribute to Fred Astaire that Astaire himself recorded. Primarily rejected by pop stations, it reached #1 on the Billboard Easy Listening survey.^[11]
• "Superman's Ghost", a tribute to George Reeves, who portrayed Superman on television in the 1950s
• "The Grave", a song that McLean had written about the Vietnam War, was covered by George Michael in 2003 in protest against the Iraq War.

The American Pie album features a version of Psalm 137, entitled "Babylon". The song is based on a canon by Philip Hayes^[12] and was arranged by McLean and Lee Hays (of The Weavers).^[13] Boney M had a number one hit in the UK with a similar song in 1978 under the title Rivers of Babylon, which was not based on this one, although using the same text from Psalm 137.

In 1980, McLean had an international number one hit with a cover of the Roy Orbison classic, "Crying". It was only after the record became a success overseas that it was released in the U.S.^{[citation needed]} The single hit #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1981.^[10] Orbison himself once described McLean as "the voice of the century",^{[citation needed]} and a subsequent re-recording of the song saw Orbison incorporate elements of McLean's version.

For the 1982 animated cult-movie The Flight of Dragons produced by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin, Jr., McLean sang the opening theme. Unfortunately, no soundtrack has ever been released.

Another hit song associated with McLean (though never recorded by him) is "Killing Me Softly with His Song", which was written about McLean after Lori Lieberman, also a singer/songwriter, saw him singing his composition "Empty Chairs" in concert.^[14] Afterwards, Lieberman wrote a poem about the experience and shared it with Norman Gimbel, who had long been searching for a way to use a phrase he had copied from a novel badly translated from Spanish to English, "killing me softly with his blues".^[15] Gimbel and Charles Fox reworked the poem and the phrase into the song "Killing Me Softly with His Song",^[16] recorded by Roberta Flack (and later covered by The Fugees).

Concerts[link]

McLean’s subsequent albums did not match the commercial success of American Pie but he became a major concert attraction in the US and overseas. His repertoire included old concert hall numbers and the catalogues of singers such as Buddy Holly, and another McLean influence, Frank Sinatra. The years spent playing gigs in small clubs and coffee houses in the 1960s transformed into well-paced performances. McLean's first concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Albert Hall in London in 1972 were critically acclaimed.

In the 1970s, McLean usually toured solo but from 1981 to 1996 was accompanied by John Platania on guitar. He now tours with his own band of Nashville musicians: Tony Migliore, Jerry Kroon, Ralph Childs and Carl "VIP" Viperman.

In 1997, McLean performed "American Pie" with Garth Brooks at Brooks' free concert in Central Park in New York City. CNN reported that "Brooks was joined on stage by two surprise guest stars, Billy Joel and Don McLean, who brought down the house with an acoustic rendition of 'American Pie'."^{[citation needed]}

Two years later, Brooks repaid the favor by appearing as a special guest (with Nanci Griffith) on McLean's first American TV special, broadcast as the PBS special Starry Starry Night. A month later, McLean wound up the 20th century by performing "American Pie" at the Lincoln Memorial Gala in Washington D.C. Brooks again played "American Pie" during We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial on January 18, 2009.

In 2007 Don McLean signed with the Asgard Agency in London giving them responsibility for booking concert tours outside North America. Since then McLean has performed tours of the UK (2007, 2008 (one appearance), 2010, 2011), Ireland (2007, 2010, 2011), mainland Europe (2008, 2010), Australia and New Zealand (2008, 2011) and South East Asia (2011). On June 26, 2011, Don McLean performed on the Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts.

McLean had a series of conflicts with Saturday Night Live writer Andy Breckman, starting when Breckman opened for McLean on tour in 1980.^[17] Breckman and McLean have penned competing renditions of the origins of this feud, both of which are available online.^[18]

Later work and honors[link]

In 1991, Don McLean returned to the UK top 20 with a re-issue of "American Pie".

Iona College conferred an honorary doctorate on McLean in 2001.^{[citation needed]}

In February 2002, "American Pie" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

In 2004, McLean was inaugurated into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Garth Brooks presented the award and said "Don McLean: his work, like the man himself, is very deep and very compassionate. His pop anthem 'American Pie' is a cultural phenomenon".^{[citation needed]}

In 2007, the biography The Don McLean Story: Killing Us Softly With His Songs was published. Biographer Alan Howard conducted extensive interviews for this, the only book-length biography of the often reclusive McLean to date.

In 2008, New York City radio station Q104.3 FM WAXQ named Don McLean's "American Pie" number 37 in their 2008 Top 1,043 Songs Of All Time listener-generated countdown.

In February 2012 McLean won the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Life Time Achievement award^[19]

In March 2012 the PBS network broadcast a feature length documentary about the life and music of Don McLean called "American Troubadour" produced by 4-time Emmy Award winning film maker Jim Brown.

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• ^AChain Lightning also peaked at #3 on the RPM Country Albums chart in Canada.

Compilations[link]

Singles[link]

Notes

• ^AThe original version of "Castles in the Air" was included on the Tapestry album. In February 1971, it was released as the first single from the album and reached #40 on the Billboard Easy Listening / Adult Contemporary chart. After the success of the "American Pie" single, "Castles in the Air" was included as the B-side to its follow-up, "Vincent", and received enough radio airplay to reach the Hot 100 chart as a "flip". McLean's 1981 version of the song first appeared on his album Believers, and later replaced the original version on some copies of Tapestry.

Rarities[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Official Web Site of Don McLean and American Pie
• Allmusic Entry
• Tom Redmond - Working with Chet Atkins: an interview with Don McLean

Horst Stein.

Horst Walter Stein (born 2 May 1928 in Elberfeld, Germany; died 27 July 2008 in Vandœuvres, Switzerland) was a German conductor.

Biography[link]

Stein's father was a mechanic. At school in Frankfurt, he studied piano, oboe, and singing. Later, he continued studies at the university in Cologne, including lessons in composition with Busoni's disciple Philipp Jarnach. From 1947 to 1951, he was a repetiteur in Wuppertal.

In 1955, at the invitation of Erich Kleiber^[1] Stein conducted at the opening of the restored Berlin State Opera (Unter den Linden)^[2], and subsequently worked there as a Staatskapellmeister. From 1961-1963, he worked under the leadership of Rolf Liebermann as deputy chief conductor at the Hamburg State Opera. From 1963-1970, Stein served as chief conductor and director of opera at the Mannheim National Theatre. Stein held a regular post at the Vienna State Opera from 1969-1971, where he conducted 500 performances^[3]. He returned to the Hamburg State Opera as General Music Director from 1972 to 1977.

In 1952, Stein began work as a conducting assistant at the Bayreuth Festival to such conductors as Joseph Keilberth, Hans Knappertsbusch, Clemens Krauss and Herbert von Karajan. From 1969 to 1986, he conducted 76 performances there, including the 1983 Bayreuth centenary production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.^[4]; although Gramophone magazine gives the number between those years as 138^[5].

He held principal conducting positions with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Basel Symphony Orchestra. He was especially associated with the music of Max Reger, and recorded several Reger works. He spent much time training young conductors^[6].

References[link]

External links[link]

• Horst Walter Stein discography (German)

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Johnny Weir
Weir at the 2010 GLAAD Media Awards
Personal information
Country represented	United States
Born	(1984-07-02) July 2, 1984 (age 27) Coatesville, PA
Height	5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
Coach	Galina Zmievskaya, Viktor Petrenko
Former coach	Priscilla Hill
Choreographer	David Wilson, Nina Petrenko
Former choreographer	Natalia Linichuk, Tatiana Tarasova, Shanetta Folle, Denis Petukhov, Priscilla Hill, Evgeny Platov, Marina Anissina, Maya Usova, Faye Kitarieva, Michelle Poley, Carolanne Leone, Giuseppe Arena, Anjelika Krylova and Yuri Sergeyev
Skating club	SC of New York
ISU personal best scores
Combined total	238.87 2010 Winter Olympics
Short program	84.60 2009–2010 GPF
Free skate	156.77 2010 Winter Olympics
Medal record Competitor for United States Men’s Figure skating World Championships Bronze 2008 Gothenburgh Men's singles Grand Prix Final Bronze 2009–2010 Tokyo Men's singles Bronze 2008–2009 Goyang Men's singles World Junior Championships Gold 2001 Budapest Men's singles

John Garvin "Johnny" Weir-Voronov^[1] (born July 2, 1984) is an American figure skater. He is a three-time U.S. National Champion (2004–2006), the 2008 Worlds bronze medalist, a two-time Grand Prix Final bronze medalist, and the 2001 World Junior Champion. Weir did not skate competitively in the 2010–11 or 2011-12 seasons.^[2] In January 2012, he announced he would return to competition in the 2012-13 season.^[3]

Life[link]

Weir at a party in 2010

Weir was born in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, to John and Patti Weir. He is of Norwegian heritage.^[4] He has a brother, Brian, who is four years younger.^[5][6] Weir was raised in Quarryville, Pennsylvania, a town in southern Lancaster County.^[7] As a child, he was a successful equestrian, competing with his pony, My Blue Shadow, an Arabian-Shetland cross.^[8][9]

Soon after Weir began skating at the age of 12, his family moved to Newark, Delaware so he could be near his training rink and coach.^[10] In the summer of 2007, he moved to Lyndhurst, New Jersey, and began training in nearby Wayne.^[11] Weir was an honor roll student at Newark High School and studied linguistics part-time at the University of Delaware before dropping out to concentrate on his skating.^[10][12] He is a self-proclaimed Russophile who admires the skating style and culture of Russia^[13] and taught himself to speak and read the language. He also speaks some French.^[14]

In July 2008, the United States Figure Skating Association and Skating Magazine announced Weir as the winner of the 2008 Reader's Choice Award for Skater of the Year, an annual trophy voted upon by skating fans and awarded to the American skater or skating team whose achievements were of the highest merit in the previous season.^[15] In 2010, Weir won this award again.^[16]

Weir has two pet chihuahuas named Bon-Bon and Vanya, and is a collector of Russian Cheburashka memorabilia.^[17] He has an interest in fashion design and, in addition to designing some of his own skating costumes, has designed ice dancing costumes for Melissa Gregory and Denis Petukhov,^[18] show costumes for Oksana Baiul^[19] and Yuzuru Hanyu's costume for his free program of 2010-2011 season.^[20]

He is Roman Catholic and open to other belief systems, including practicing Kabbalah, stating, "I believe in anything good, and anything that can teach love".^[21][22]

During the 2010 Olympics two Canadian broadcasters commented on Weir's flamboyant demeanor, made derogatory comments of his sexuality, and questioned his gender.^[23][24]

Weir's sexual orientation was long the subject of media speculation; however, when asked about his sexuality, Weir responded "...it's not part of my sport and it's private. I can sleep with whomever I choose and it doesn't affect what I'm doing on the ice."^[25] In his memoir Welcome to My World, published January 2011, Weir officially came out as gay, citing a string of gay youth suicides as one reason for his decision: "With people killing themselves and being scared into the closet, I hope that even just one person can gain strength from my story."^{[26][27][28][29][30]}

In 2010 a main-belt asteroid, discovered in 1995 by T. V. Kryachko, was officially named after the skater, at the suggestion of his Russian fans.^[31]

Weir married Victor Voronov – a 28-year-old Georgetown Law graduate of Russian Jewish descent^[32][33] – in a December 2011 civil ceremony on New Year's Eve in New York City.^[34][35] Weir said, the "wedding [will be] in the summer, but all the official stuff is done now!"^[36] Weir's representative said, "The couple has taken the new surname, Weir-Voronov, but professionally, Johnny will continue to be known as Johnny Weir."^[35] In February 2012, Weir stated that he was considering converting to Judaism.^[37]

Career[link]

Early career[link]

Weir became interested in figure skating at the age of eleven while watching Oksana Baiul win her 1994 Olympic gold medal. He taught himself how to jump on roller skates in his basement. His parents eventually bought him a pair of used figure skates, and he practiced on a frozen cornfield behind his family home.^[14][38] His parents then purchased group lessons for him at the University of Delaware, where coach Priscilla Hill soon noticed his talent and took him on as a private student.^[9]

Although he began skating at the relatively late age of 12, Weir progressed quickly through the ranks. He performed an Axel jump in his first week on skates.^[9] His parents could not afford to support both his figure skating and his equestrian pursuits, so Weir gave up his pony, My Blue Shadow, and turned his focus completely to figure skating. He competed in pair skating with Jodi Rudden on the juvenile and intermediate levels, but gave it up to concentrate on single skating.^[9]

Weir's first major victory came in 2001 when, at the age of 16, he skated three clean programs at the World Junior Championships and won the gold medal ahead of fellow American Evan Lysacek.^[39] This was the first time since 1987 that the U.S. had placed first and second on the World Junior podium.^[40] Weir also placed sixth that year in his debut at the senior U.S. Championships.^[14]

At the 2003 U.S. Championships, he literally hit the wall during his long program. He restarted the program, but immediately injured his knee on a failed triple axel landing. This time he was too injured to restart, so he withdrew from the competition.^[41] Shortly after this competition, he switched club affiliation from the University of Delaware FSC to the Skating Club of New York, which he still represents.^[42]

2003–2004 season[link]

Weir competing at the 2004 NHK Trophy

The 2003–2004 season was the turning point for Weir. He qualified for the U.S. Nationals by winning his regional and sectional championships. He received the first 6.0 of his career during his long program at 2004 U.S. Championships, winning the gold over Michael Weiss and Matthew Savoie.^[43] He then competed at the World Championships and placed fifth.^[14]

2004–2005 season[link]

In the 2004–2005 season Weir won his first two Grand Prix titles. He won the first at the 2004 NHK Trophy in Japan and the second at 2004 Trophée Eric Bompard in France.^[14] Only two Grand Prix events per season can count toward a skater's point totals under ISU rules,^[44] but Weir also skated at the 2004 Cup of Russia for no official points and took the silver medal behind reigning world champion Evgeni Plushenko.^[45]

At the 2005 U.S. Championships, he earned five 6.0's for presentation with his free skate to Otonal and successfully defended his national title.^[46]

He went on to compete at the 2005 World Championships with a landing foot injury and placed fourth.^[47]

2005–2006 season[link]

The 2005–2006 Olympic season proved difficult for Weir. He came in seventh at Skate Canada after spraining his ankle on a jump landing at the start of the free skate and struggling through the rest of the program,^[48] and third at Cup of Russia.^[14]

In December 2005 he won the men's competition at the 2005 Marshall's Figure Skating Challenge, in which results were determined live by call-in votes and texts from viewers, in the final round over Michael Weiss with 64% of the vote.^[49]

At the 2006 U.S. Championships, he won his third consecutive title and, as the national champion, was automatically named to the U.S. Olympics and World teams.^[50]

At the 2006 Winter Olympics, Weir skated a personal best short program and was in second place behind Evgeni Plushenko in that segment. However, Weir omitted some of his planned jumps in the free skate, and finished off of the podium in fifth place.^[51]

At the 2006 World Championships, Weir finished seventh, fighting a nagging back injury.^[52]

2006–2007 season[link]

Weir began the 2006–2007 competitive season at Skate Canada, where he placed third, then went on to Cup of Russia and won the silver medal, his third consecutive medal at that event.^[14] He placed second at the 2006 Marshall's Figure Skating Challenge with his performance to The Swan, an exhibition version of his Olympic program, and Weir's signature piece.^[53]

Weir withdrew from the 2006–2007 Grand Prix Final before the free skate due to a hip injury he sustained in a freak fall during the short program.^[54] At the 2007 U.S. Championships, Weir was in second place after the short program, less than a point behind Evan Lysacek. In the free program, he was unable to complete his triple axel combination, fell on a triple loop and doubled several of his planned combinations. He attempted a quadruple toe loop but it was heavily two-footed on the landing. Weir lost his national title and finished in third place.^[55] At the 2007 World Championships, Weir placed eighth.^[14]

2007–2008 season[link]

Weir at the 2008 World Figure Skating Championships

After the disappointments of the 2006–2007 season, Weir made the decision to shake up his training regimen by leaving the only coach he had ever had, Priscilla Hill, moving out of his family home and moving on his own to New Jersey to train with Ukrainian coach Galina Zmievskaya.^[56] He subsequently had a great start to his 2007–2008 season at the Cup of China where he skated two clean and strong programs, achieving new personal best scores for both his free skate and overall score and winning the gold medal over fellow American Evan Lysacek.^[57] He then went on to Cup of Russia and took the gold medal there, as well.^[5] The two first place finishes secured him a spot at the 2007–2008 Grand Prix Final, where Weir competed with a recurring injury in his landing foot and stumbled in both his short and long programs but still managed to place 4th overall.^[5]

At the 2008 U.S. Championships, Weir won the short program over Evan Lysacek by 1.35 points but Lysacek won the long program by exactly the same amount, resulting in a tie. Weir completed a slightly two-footed quadruple toe loop in his long program and scored more points on his jumps and in the program components than Lysacek but Lysacek scored more points for his spins and footwork.^[58] Under ISU rules, in the event of a tie the winner of the long program is awarded the gold medal,^[44] so Weir received the silver.^{[59][60][61][62][63]}

At the 2008 World Championships, the United States had failed to medal in every other discipline when the men took the ice last. Weir skated a short program that received a career-best score and put him in second place. In the free program, he skated steadily but tentatively, eliminating the second jump from his first planned combination and doubling a planned triple jump on another combination. However, the program was strong enough for Weir to win his first World medal – a bronze – and kept the United States from being shut out of the medals at a World Championship for the first time since 1994.^[64]

2008–2009 season[link]

Weir began the 2008–2009 season by winning the silver medal at Skate America in October 2008.^[65] He then went on to the NHK Trophy in late November, where he competed while suffering from a severe cold but still managed to win his second silver medal of the season.^[66] These two finishes qualified him for the 2008-2009 Grand Prix Final, where he won the bronze medal in December 2008.^[67]

During the 2008 Christmas holiday Weir traveled to South Korea to perform in a charity skating show. While there, he contracted a severe stomach virus that landed him in the hospital and caused him to lose eight pounds in a single day. He was unable to regain all of the weight or train at full capacity before the 2009 U.S. Championships in January 2009, where he singled the planned triple axel in both his short and long programs and also fell on the triple lutz in the long, resulting in a fifth-place finish. It was the first time since 2003 that he had been off the podium at Nationals.^[68] He was subsequently not named to the U.S. team for the World Championships.

2009–2010 season[link]

In preparation for the 2009–2010 season Weir went to top skating choreographer David Wilson to create his competitive programs. On September 26, 2009, he debuted his short program, which was set to music by Raúl di Blasio, at a benefit to commemorate 9/11.^[69]

In the 2009 Grand Prix season Weir finished a disappointing fourth at Cup of Russia after doubling several of the triple jumps in both his short and long programs, but two weeks later rallied to win silver at the NHK Trophy, while suffering from a cold and sinus infection.^[70] This qualified Weir for the 2009-2010 Grand Prix Final in Tokyo, Japan, where he won the bronze medal.^[71]

Weir won the bronze medal at the 2010 U.S. Championships in Spokane, Washington and was subsequently named to the U.S. team for the Olympics. He became the center of an animal rights controversy by wearing fox fur on his skating costume at that event. He received protests from the animal rights groups Friends of Animals and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).^[72][73] When the protests escalated to threats of violence against him, Weir announced he would remove the fur from his costume, although he continued to defend wearing fur as a "personal choice."^[74] Death threats from animal rights activists also forced Weir to alter his housing arrangements for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. He had intended to stay in a Vancouver hotel, but for security reasons, chose to stay at the secure Olympic Village, sharing a suite with fellow American figure skater Tanith Belbin.^[75][76]

At the 2010 Winter Olympics, Weir finished sixth overall, with a new personal-best combined score of 238.87.^[77]

2010-2012[link]

Weir did not compete during the 2010–2011 season and confirmed in June 2011 that he would also miss the 2011–2012 season, while suggesting a competitive return was still possible.^[78] Weir indicated that he hopes to compete in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, "even though I'll [he'll] be old".^[79]

2012-13 season[link]

In January 2012, Weir stated his intention to return to competition in the 2012-2013 season^[3][80][81] He said that he would continue to work with Galina Zmievskaya, Viktor Petrenko and Nina Petrenko at the Ice House in Hackensack, New Jersey.^[81] In May 2012, Weir was assigned to two 2012 Grand Prix events, the 2012 Rostelecom Cup and the 2012 Trophee Eric Bompard.^[82]

Coaching changes[link]

Weir and Zmievskaya during the 2008 Grand Prix Final

From the beginning of his career at age twelve, Weir trained under coach Priscilla Hill. They worked together first at the University of Delaware in Newark and after the 2002/2003 season moved to the Pond Ice Arena, also in Newark. Weir also spent part of each summer between 2003 and 2005 working with Russian coach Tatiana Tarasova at the International Skating Center of Connecticut in Simsbury, Connecticut.^[83]

He changed coaches in the summer of 2007 when he moved to the Ice Vault Arena in Wayne, New Jersey and began working with Galina Zmievskaya, who previously coached Weir's idol Oksana Baiul.^[84][85] Zmievskaya's son-in-law and Olympic gold medallist Viktor Petrenko acts as Weir's assistant coach, and her daughter Nina Petrenko is one of his choreographers.^[5]

Skating techniques[link]

Unlike most figure skaters, he is a clockwise spinner and jumper.^[54]

Celebrity and popular culture career[link]

Ice shows[link]

Weir skated with the Champions on Ice touring ice show every spring from 2004 until 2007, their last season before going out of business.^[86][87]

He has also performed in Russia, Japan, China and South Korea.

Documentary and TV series[link]

Pop Star on Ice, a documentary about Weir and his career by filmmakers James Pellerito and David Barba, was filmed between 2006 and Spring 2008. It premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival on May 24, 2009 and was scheduled to show at film festivals across the United States in the Spring and Summer of 2009 before airing on the Sundance Channel on December 24, 2009.^[88] The filmmakers are also making a multiple-episode TV series entitled Be Good Johnny Weir, that is set to air on the Sundance Channel in early 2010.^[89]

Other television appearances[link]

After 2006 Winter Olympics, He taught Kathy Griffin how to skate in the season two finale of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List.^[90] In 2010, Weir appeared in an episode of When I Was 17 on the MTV network, describing his experiences in high school.^[91] After 2010 Winter Olympics, he appeared many talk shows and skating shows.

In season 3 of The Rachel Zoe Project, Weir was dressed by Rachel and her assistant Brad Goreski to an event.

He was a judge on the U.S. reality show Skating with the Stars.^[92]

He was also a guest judge on the Logo reality series RuPaul's Drag Race season 3 upon which he was kissed by Carmen Carrera.

Musical career[link]

In addition to his skating career, Weir has also recorded a pop song produced by Lucian Piane titled "Dirty Love". It was recorded in April 2010, and released as a single worldwide on January 11, 2011.

Fashion[link]

Off the ice, he has appeared in a fashion spread in BlackBook magazine^[93] (including a shot of him in a wrap-around mini skirt),^[94] Vanity fair, Vogue Japan^[95] and others. He also modeled in runway shows for the fashion label Heatherette.^[96]

Promotions[link]

Charity[link]