Наталья Гулькина

Natalia Valeryevna Gulkina is a Russian singer and actress. Born in Moscow. She studied well at school, but was not distinguished by exemplary behavior. Natalia began to practice singing, taking an example from her father. Having learned to play the guitar, she began to compose songs herself, which she sang in friendly companies, pioneer camps, at graduation parties. Won competitions. She married Nikolai Gulkin early and gave birth to a son Alexey at the age of 20. Mirage (group) Studying vocals in a jazz studio, I dreamed of entering the professional stage. Svetlana Razina, one of the participants of the studio, introduced Gulkina to the young composer and keyboardist Andrey Lityagin. At that time, he was looking for a new vocalist for the Mirage collective, since Margarita Sukhankina, who took part in the recording of three compositions "Stars are waiting for us", "Video" and "This Night", refused to participate in the recording of the rest of the material for the future album, because she intended to make an opera career at the Bolshoi Theater and did not want to be seen in a group performing pop music. Lityagin suggested Natalia to record some songs. Gulkina performed vocal parts for five songs: "Sunny Summer", "Crazy World", "I Don't Want", "Electricity", "Magic World" In 1988, Mirage was preparing the release of the second album "Together again", which Gulkina insisted on creating. At this time Natalia toured the country with the band. Lityagin, in order not to distract the singer, again invited Sukhankina to record, with whom the album was recorded. Natalia was offered to learn songs and perform them under the soundtrack of Margarita.[citation needed] Gulkina refused and left the Mirage group, deciding to start a solo career. "Probably the first time I left Mirage because I had to try my own hand," Natalia said. - "Yes, and the circumstances in the group developed that pushed me to such a decision. Then several band members went on tour at the same time, which, of course, could not please me. Besides, I found out that I earn less than the other soloists. I thought it was unfair and left. By that time I was already quite popular, so it was easier for me to start my new path." The singer did not understand legal issues and continued to perform those songs of "Mirage", which she performed as a soloist of the group. Soon, however, the organizers of the group forbade her to do this. "I didn't worry too much about it," Gulkina said, "but I took and wrote the song "The Sun is Burning", which was immediately picked up by various radio stations. Soon she became a hit, and I started touring the country with her. Then there was a new song "I believe and I love"". At the same time, Natalia got acquainted with Leonid Velichkovsky. He told her that he had a lot of interesting material, and invited Gulkina to watch it. Natalia liked Velichkovsky's music, and they recorded the album "The Little Prince", which included the song "The Sun is burning". The album was very popular. In Gorky Park, Moscow a team concert was held in connection with the celebration of the City Day, which the TV crews of the American channel MTV came to shoot. The Mirage group was invited to perform at it with Tatiana Ovsienko, "Fairy" with Svetlana Razina and Natalia Gulkina. "Until that moment, our group didn't have a name at all," Gulkina recalled." - We were announced as Natalia Gulkina - "Ex-Mirage" or simply Natalia Gulkina. And then we grabbed our heads — what should we call ourselves? There can't be two "Mirage" or "Mirage" and ex-"Mirage" on the stage. They began to come up with some names on the move. And at this time, the MTV crew enters the dressing room. I am presented to them as a Russian star, or rather, a star of the USSR, and they let's ask what I have, since I am a star. And my husband, now deceased, Kostya Terentyev, suddenly starts telling them that I have my own train, on which my group and I travel all over the country. And that we also have a plane. And how he went to lie! I'm terrified. What is he talking about?! And he just wanted to show that we are not worse than their stars. And suddenly one of us has an idea, what if we call our group "Stars". At first I doubted that we would call ourselves stars — that we are so cool, or what? And then someone said, what does it have to do with cool or not cool. There's the moon and the stars. And they are already shouting to us: "Your exit! How to declare?!"Well, we waved our hand: "Announce: Natalia Gulkina and the group of Stars"". At the same time, the band shot the first two videos for the songs "The Sun is burning" and "I Believe and love". In 1989, the band released their second album "Disco", which gained huge popularity . In 1990, after winning the Inter-Chance International festival, Natalia Gulkina went on tour to China, becoming in fact the first Soviet pop singer to perform in this country. In Beijinge about 20 thousand spectators gathered at the concert of "Stars" in the Sports Palace. In 1991 Natalia Gulkina recorded two albums. The first of them is "You just have to dream", the songs for which were written by Sergey Lemoh on the words of Gulkina ("Ivanhoe", "This is China", etc., clips were shot on them) and Oleg Molchanov on the words Arkady Slavorosova. The second is the singer's solo album "Day Angel", the songs for which were written by Oleg Molchanov and Slavorosov. The singer took 9th place in the "Song of the Year" according to the "Moskovsky Komsomolets". Since 1992, dancers have appeared in the "Stars", cooperation with choreographer Sergei Mandrik began. For several years, the dancers changed repeatedly, and by 1995 the quartet "Street Jazz" was determined: Sergey Mandrik, Maxim Nedolechko aka "Peps", Volodya Suvorov and Araik Martirosyan. Gulkina worked with this team until 2001. In 1993 Natalia Gulkina founded the "New Generation" studio school for gifted children on the basis of the children's creativity center "Constellation". In the same year, the recording company ZeKo Records released her album "Holy Love" with the hits "Rio de Janeiro" and "Goodbye, love". In this and subsequent years, Gulkina performed concerts in Germany for a Russian-speaking audience. In 1995, Natalia Gulkina entered GITIS at the Faculty of Pop Art, majoring in "Director of pop-mass spectacles" at the course of the People's Artist of Russia Andrey Nikolaev. In 1996, the record company ZeKo Records released the album "Dancing City" with the hits "Albatross" and "Melody of Love". In the album, in addition to the works of Molchanov and Lemokh, there were songs by young authors - Rafael Safin and Lyubov Lyubovtsova. Director Andrey Shcherbakov shot a video for the title song "Melody of Love", in which the dancers of the Street Jazz collective took part. In December, Natalia Gulkina's solo concerts dedicated to the 10th anniversary of her creative activity took place at the Moscow Youth Palace. To participate in the show, the dance groups "Krim's" and "Shine" were invited, as well as pupils of the New Generation studio school. In 1997, Gulkina transferred to the acting faculty of GITISa and began to study at the course of David Livnev. In the same and subsequent years, Natalia worked on a new album under the working title "Sail of Dreams", which was recorded by Tchaikovsky Grand Symphony Orchestra under the direction of V. I. Fedoseev and many musicians. This album was never released. In 1999 Natalia successfully graduated from GITIS, having received a diploma of a dramatic actress of theater and cinema. In 2000, Gulkina recorded a remix of the song "Sunny Summer" from the first album "Mirage", for which a clip was shot by music video maker Viktor Konisevich. Racing driver Alexey Dudukalo, the champion of Russia in auto racing, took part in the shooting. At the same time, two more remixes were recorded for the songs "Mirage" — "I don't want" and "Mad World". In 2001, to replace the Street Jazz collective, Gulkina began