Valery Meladze Russian Singer Born 1965 in Batumi

Early life

Valery Meladze, born Valerian Shotayevich Meladze, is a Russian singer, songwriter and record producer who was born in Batumi, Georgia, on 23 June 1965. His parents were Shota and Nelly Meladze, and his older brother Konstantin later became his main songwriter and producer. As a child Valery attended music school and learned the piano.

His parents and grandparents were engineers, and after finishing school in 1983 he followed that path, enrolling at the Nikolayev Shipbuilding Institute in Ukraine, now the Admiral Makarov National University of Shipbuilding, to study marine power plant engineering. In 1985 Konstantin began playing keyboards in a group called April, and Valery joined as a backing vocalist before the band broke up.

Career

In 1989 an album recorded by the brothers with April reached Kim Breitburg of the Soviet rock group Dialog, who invited Valery to become the lead singer and Konstantin to write songs. The result was the 1991 album Poseredine Mira. Dialog disbanded that year, and in 1992 Valery formed a new group with Breitburg and the guitarist Viktor Litvinenko, but in 1993 he also began a solo career. While touring in Moscow the brothers met the producer Evgeniy Friedland, who helped record Valery's first song, "Ne Trevoz Mne Dushu Skripka". Friedland asked him to adopt a Russian version of his surname, and he declined.

Alla Pugacheva heard a demo in 1993 and invited him to perform at The Christmas Meeting in Moscow. His debut solo album Sera followed on the Souz label in 1995, with "Poseredine Leta" and "Noch Pered Rozhdestvom" among its better-known songs. At the end of 1995 he won the Ovation and Zvezda awards in the debut and best singer categories. His second studio album Posledniy romantik appeared in October 1996, and in March 1997 he performed at the Olympiysky arena in Moscow, a concert released as the live album Live Olympik Moscow.

In 1998 the brothers parted ways with Friedland and Souz, and the third album Samba Belogo Motylka came out in January of that year. A greatest hits collection, The Best, followed in 1999 as Konstantin moved to Kyiv and wrote fewer songs. The fourth studio album, Vsyo Tak I Bylo, was released at the end of 1999 on a new label, and "Mechta", "Rassvetnaya" and "Krasivo" reached the top of the Russian charts. That year he also voiced the cartoon Neznayka on the Moon.

In 2000 the Meladze brothers founded the Russian-Ukrainian pop group VIA Gra, and Valery paused his own career for a time. In 2004 he released songs with the group, including "Prityazhenya bolshe net", and a compilation called Nastoyashchee came out that year. He performed in the Kremlin in March 2002 and gave eleven concerts on a United States tour the same year. His fifth album, Nega, appeared in 2003 with the songs "C'est la vie" and "Oskolki Leta". The brothers produced the television project Fabrika Zvezd-7 in 2007, and the sixth studio album Vopreki was released in 2008.

On screen he is credited in two films, Cinderella from 2002 and The New Year's Rate Plan from 2008. His label is listed as Velvet Music, and his music falls within pop and traditional pop. He plays the piano. His YouTube channel had 117 thousand subscribers as of February 2025, and he had about 529,000 followers on Instagram in October 2026.

Recognition

Meladze's wins include the Golden Gramophone Award, an Ovation, an award at the Muz-TV Awards, and the titles Merited Artist of Russia, People's Artist of the Chechen Republic and an award of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. In total six wins and one nomination are recorded. He and the group Nu Virgos were named Best Duo at the 2004 Russian Music Awards, and he won the Best Artist of the Year at the fourth Muz-TV Awards on 2 June 2006. He became a Merited Artist of Russia in 2006 and a People's Artist of Chechnya at the end of 2008. His nomination was for Best MTV Russia Act at the 2006 MTV Europe Music Awards.

Personal life

Meladze married the engineer Irina in Batumi in the summer of 1989, and the marriage ended in 2014. That year he married Albina Dzhanabaeva in Moscow.