Feist

Leslie Feist was born on 13 February 1976 in Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada. Her parents are both artists. Her father, Harold Feist, is an American-Canadian abstract expressionist painter who taught at both the Alberta College of Art and Design and Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. Her mother, Lyn Feist, was a student of ceramics from Saskatchewan. After their first child, Ben, was born, the family moved to Sackville. Feist's parents divorced soon after she was born and Ben, Feist and their mother moved to Regina, Saskatchewan, where they lived with her grandparents. They later moved to Calgary, Alberta, where she attended Bishop Carroll High School as well as Alternative High School. She aspired to be a writer, and spent much of her youth singing in choirs. At the age of twelve, Feist performed as one of 1,000 dancers in the opening ceremonies of the Calgary Winter Olympics, which she cites as inspiration for the video "1234." Because her father is American, Feist has dual Canadian-U.S. citizenship, joking later that she was given U.S. citizenship as part of a deal with Apple.