Sogdiana Fedorinskaya Russian Singer Born 1984 in Tashkent

Early life

Sogdiana Fedorinskaya, who performs simply as Sogdiana, was born Oksana Vladimirovna Nechitaylo on 17 February 1984 in Tashkent. She is of Ukrainian descent and is described as both an Uzbek and a Russian singer and actress. Her stage name refers to Sogdia, an ancient Eastern Iranian kingdom and province that lay partly within present-day Uzbekistan.

She sings in Russian, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Tajik, French, Chechen and English, and she has written some of her own songs. She has named Sofia Rotaru, Queen, Lara Fabian, Mariah Carey, Ofra Haza and Whitney Houston among her musical influences. Her earliest albums were released in Uzbekistan: Mening ko'ngilim (2001), Mening Shahzodam (2005) and Sen kelma (2006).

Career

In 2005 Sogdiana took part in the International Musical Festival of Pop Discovery in Varna, Bulgaria, and was then invited to the Canzoni dal Mondo competition. There her song "Yurak Mahzun" received the prize for best arrangement and she was nominated as best singer. In the same year she released Mening Shahzodam (My Prince) in Tashkent.

The year 2006 brought her to a wider audience in Russia and neighboring countries. She appeared as Jasmin in the film Hodzha Nasreddin - Game Begins, and her song "Heart-Magnet" was released to radio and played on 129 stations. By the end of June she was touring Russia and the CIS countries with the television talent project Factory of Stars, in its sixth season. She also starred in Sogdiana, a biographical film directed by Yakubov that opened in Tashkent on 15 November 2006. She co-wrote its songs "Orzularim" and "Meni Esla" with Ravil Gimazutdinov, and Russian versions of the same pieces were issued as "Catch Up with the Wind" and "It's Not a Dream". The singer Philipp Kirkorov praised her performance of "Heart-Magnet" in August 2006.

On 25 November 2006 she attended the Golden Gramophone ceremony in the Kremlin, after "Heart-Magnet" had spent 20 weeks on the radio chart. In December she performed at the festival "New Songs About the Main Thing", gave three solo concerts at the Palace of Friendship of Peoples in Tashkent, and received a nomination for best singer of the year at the MTVA Awards in Uzbekistan. She was also nominated for a soundtrack prize in early 2007, which went to the singer Valeriya.

In March 2007 she received the Pilar Award. Around that time she ended her contract with the manager Victor Drobysh by mutual agreement and took over the management of her own career. In April she released the song "Blue Sky" together with a video. During late 2007 she performed on the seventh season of Factory of Stars, singing duets with Natalia Tumshevits and Tatyana Bogachyova. "Blue Sky" stayed on the chart for 20 weeks and brought her a second Golden Gramophone in December, and she sang again at the year-end festival "New and Old Songs About the Main Thing".

In February 2008 she co-hosted a radio program with Alla Dovlatova. On 14 February she released the album Heart-Magnet (Serdce-Magnit), which contained 11 songs and three remixes. The following month she performed at a concert on Red Square held during the Russian presidential election period. Her single "Catch Up with the Wind" remained on the chart for 14 weeks.

In 2009 she recorded "Sinee Nebo", "Vspominaj Menja" and "Na Vostok Ot Jedema", writing the lyrics for the last two, and she made a video for "S Toboi Ili Bez Tebja". Her album Edema (Eden) appeared in 2011, and a video for the song "Molniya" followed in 2014. Over the years she has also recorded cover versions, among them a Russian-language version of Lara Fabian's "To Love Again", an Uzbek-language version of Ofra Haza's "Show Me" and Emma Shapplin's "De L'abime Au Rivage".

Recognition

Sogdiana has received the Golden Gramophone award twice, in 2006 for "Heart-Magnet" and in 2007 for "Blue Sky". She also holds the title People's Artist of the Chechen Republic.