Vedran Smailović known as the "Cellist of Sarajevo", is a musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

 from Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...

, and a former cellist in the Sarajevo String Quartet.

He played in the Sarajevo Opera, the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra

Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra

Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra is based, as its name indicates, in Sarajevo. Its first concert was performed on October 24, 1923, with the program being "Lisinski: Overture from the opera "Porin"; Mendelssohn, Concert g-minor for piano and orchestra; Beethoven: Second Symphony." The conductors...

, The Symphony Orchestra RTV Sarajevo, and the National Theatre of Sarajevo.

Regularly playing his cello

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

 in ruined buildings during the siege of Sarajevo

Siege of Sarajevo

The Siege of Sarajevo is the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. Serb forces of the Republika Srpska and the Yugoslav People's Army besieged Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996 during the Bosnian War.After Bosnia...

, most notably performing Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor

Adagio in G minor

The Adagio in G minor for violin, strings and organ continuo, is a neo-Baroque composition popularly attributed to the 18th-century Venetian master Tomaso Albinoni, but composed by the 20th-century musicologist and Albinoni biographer Remo Giazotto and based on the disputed discovery of a...

, Smailović caught the imagination of people around the world. In his honour, composer David Wilde

David Wilde

David Wilde is an English pianist and composer. As a boy he studied with Solomon and his pupil Franz Reizenstein, who had also studied composition with Hindemith and Vaughan Williams...

 wrote a piece for solo cello, The Cellist of Sarajevo, which was recorded by Yo Yo Ma. Paul O'Neill

Paul O'Neill (rock producer)

Paul O'Neill is an American music composer, lyricist, producer, and songwriter.-Early years:A New York City native, O'Neill began playing guitar with a number of rock bands in high school and quickly graduated to folk guitar gigs at downtown clubs...

 described Smailović's performances as the inspiration for Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24

Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24

Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24 is an instrumental medley of "Carol of the Bells" and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" first released on the Savatage album Dead Winter Dead in 1995 as "Christmas Eve ." It was re-released by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, a side project of several Savatage members, on...

by Savatage

Savatage

Savatage is an American heavy metal band founded by the brothers Jon and Criss Oliva in 1978 at Astro Skate in Tarpon Springs, Florida.-Early days :...

 and the Trans Siberian Orchestra. Folk singer John McCutcheon

John McCutcheon

John McCutcheon is an American folk music singer and multi-instrumentalist who has produced 34 albums since the 1970s. He is regarded as a master of the hammered dulcimer, and is also proficient on many other instruments including guitar, banjo, autoharp, mountain dulcimer, fiddle, and...

 also penned a song in his honour, In the Streets of Sarajevo.

Canadian author Elizabeth Wellburn

Elizabeth Wellburn

Elizabeth Wellburn is a Canadian author. Her writing has been in the areas of fiction for children and educational technology.In 1998, her book Echoes From the Square was published. It tells a fictionalized story based on the real musician, Vedran Smailovic adding the character of a young boy who...

 worked with Smailović to create the children's book Echoes from the Square (1998). Another Canadian author, Steven Galloway

Steven Galloway

Steven Galloway is a Canadian novelist.Galloway was born in Vancouver, and raised in Kamloops, British Columbia. He attended the University College of the Cariboo and the University of British Columbia. Galloway teaches for the UBC creative writing program...

, used Smajlović as a peripheral character in his bestselling 2008 novel, The Cellist of Sarajevo. In the book, Smajlović plays every day at 4:00 pm for 22 days, always at the same time and location, to honour the 22 people killed by a mortar bomb while they queued for bread on May 26, 1992. The account, including the time of the mortar attack (which actually took place at 10.00 a.m.), is fictional.Smailović publicly expressed outrage over the book's publication and demanded financial compensation from the author.

Smailović also played at funerals during the siege, even though funerals were often targeted by snipers. He escaped the city in late 1993, since when he has been involved in numerous music projects as a performer, composer and conductor.

He lives in Warrenpoint

Warrenpoint

Warrenpoint is a small town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies on the northern shore of Carlingford Lough and is separated from the Republic of Ireland by a narrow strait. The town sprang up within the townland of Ringmackilroy...

, Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

.

External links

• Article in the Times
  The Times
  The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
  
  newspaper - "A musician who risked his life playing a lament for 22 massacre victims is incensed by a novel capitalising on his act"
• The My Hero Project: Vedran Smailovic