Valery Meladze

Valerian Shotayevich Meladze (born 23 June 1965), known professionally as Valery Meladze, is a Georgian singer and a Meritorious Artist of Russia. He is the brother of composer and producer Konstantin Meladze, who writes songs for him. Biography Early life 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. First success In 1989, Meladze's homemade album "April" reached the producer of the successful Soviet Union group Dialog. The producer liked Valeriy's voice, and Valeriy joined Dialog as the lead singer, with Konstantin starting to write songs for the group. This culminated in the band's 1991 album, "Poseredine Mira" (Посерeдине Мира; Middle of the World).