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Valery Meladze

Valeriy Meladze
Валерий Меладзе
Дуэт с Лорак.JPG
Background information
Birth name Valerian Shotayevich Meladze
Born (1965-06-23) 23 June 1965 (age 51)
Batumi, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union
Genres Pop, art rock, eurodance, Europop, pop rock
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, actor, music producer
Instruments Vocal, piano
Years active 1989–present
Labels Melodiya, Monolit Records, Velvet Music
Associated acts Dialog, Nu Virgos
Website www.meladze.ru

Valeriy Shotayevich Meladze (Russian: Валерий Шотаевич Меладзе, Georgian: ვალერი შოთას ძე მელაძე; born 23 June 1965 in Batumi) is a Russian singer of Georgian descent. He is the brother of composer and producer Konstantin Meladze, who writes songs for him.Meritorious Artist of Russia (2006)

Valeriy Meladze was born on 23 June 1965 in Batumi in the family of Shota and Nelly Meladze, who were engineers. Valeriy has a brother, Konstantin (1963), and a sister, Liana (1968). He was an impatient and disobedient child, while his brother was very quiet. He went to music school and learned to play the piano. In school he did not study well. Since his parents, his grandmother and his grandfather were engineers, he decided to enter the Engineering Institute. Meladze entered the Nikolayev Shipbuilding Institute in Ukraine to study mechanical engineering of ship power plants. In 1985, Valeriy's brother started playing keyboard in the group "April". After some time, Valeriy started to sing in this group as a back-up vocalist, but this group broke up.

When he was studying in his third year he met his future wife Irina. They married in 1989. He lived in a dormitory and he lacked scholarships to feed his wife and daughter. During this year, his homemade album "April" reached the producer of the successful Soviet Union group Dialog. The producer liked Valeriy's voice. Valeriy began singing the group as the lead singer and Konstantin started to write songs for the group. In 1991, was released "Dialog"s album - "Poseredine Mira" (Посерeдине Мира; Middle Of The World).

In 1993, the producer of the group died and the group had financial problems. Dialog lost popularity and in end of 1993 Meladze left the group. During The Moscow Tour, they met their future producer Evgeniy Friedland. Evgeniy helped to record the first of Valeriy's songs - "Ne Trevoz Mne Dushu Skripka" (Не тревожь мне душу, скрипка; Don't Disturb my soul, violin). After the success of the song, Evgeniy asked Valeriy to change his last name (surname) from "Meladze" to "Lisov" or "Lisovskiy", because the translation of "mela" from Georgian to Russian is "lisa" (English: fox). However, he refused to change his name.


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