Kormukhina, Olga Borisovna (born June 1, 1960, Gorky) is a Russian rock singer, a native of Nizhny Novgorod. She is known for her powerful vocals and a long career at the crossroads of rock and jazz; in 2014 she performed at the closing ceremony of the XXII Olympic Games in Sochi.[1]

Childhood and youth in Gorky

Olga was born in Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod) into a family where music was part of everyday life: her mother was the director of a museum, and her father worked as a lead engineer at an industrial enterprise and had an exceptional tenor voice, dreaming of a professional singing career.[1] Olga's brother, Andrey, later became a composer.[1]

At her mother's insistence, after school Kormukhina enrolled in the civil engineering institute to study architecture. She found her studies uninspiring, but the good acoustics of the institute's rooms allowed her to practice singing. One day she was overheard by officials of the Komsomol regional committee, who suggested she perform at the All-Union Jazz-Rock Festival "Nizhny Novgorod Spring." While preparing, Olga discovered foreign rock music and won the competition's Grand Prix, after which she announced that she wanted to drop out of the institute — her mother was against it, while her father supported her.[1]

Career

After her victory at the festival, Kormukhina sang in a restaurant for a while, gaining stage experience. Word of the talented singer reached Moscow: the jazz conductor Oleg Lundstrem invited her to join his ensemble. To obtain a Moscow propiska (residence permit), Olga enrolled at the Gnessin School and graduated with honors.[1]

After working with Lundstrem's orchestra, the singer performed with Anatoly Kroll's ensemble. In 1986 she took part in a festival in Jūrmala, receiving two special jury diplomas. Kormukhina then joined Chris Kelmi's band "Rock Atelier," staying with it for about a year. In 1988 she formed her own band, "Krasnaya Pantera" ("Red Panther"), with which she won the Grand Prix at the "Wind of Change" festival in Dnepropetrovsk and recorded the debut album "Vremya prishlo" ("The Time Has Come"), though it was never officially released.[1]

In the early 1990s, Kormukhina unexpectedly left show business. She returned in the 2000s: the singer released the singles "Ya padayu v nebo" ("I'm Falling into the Sky") and "Put" ("The Path"), as well as the album "Za granyu snov" ("Beyond the Edge of Dreams"). In February 2012 the long-awaited album "Padayu v nebo" ("I'm Falling into the Sky") came out, featuring 18 tracks; most of the songs were written jointly with the guitarist Aleksey Belov, and the record also included works by Sergey Savateev, Yevgeny Kobylyansky, Grigory Bezuglyy, and Margarita Pushkina.[2] In 2014, at the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Sochi, Kormukhina performed an English-Russian version of the hit "Moscow Calling."[1]

At age 33, the singer came to the Orthodox faith, which significantly changed her way of life: the number of concerts and contacts with the press decreased, but work on musical material did not stop.[2] In music criticism and among listeners, Kormukhina has been given the labels "the best voice in Russia" and "Tsaritsa of Russian Rock," as well as being compared to Tina Turner.[2]

Sources

  1. globalmsk.ru — KORMUKHINA Olga Borisovna — GlobalMSK.ru
  2. aif.ru — Olga Kormukhina: My New Album Is Outside the Format — Argumenty i Fakty