Vitas
Encyclopedia
Vitaliy "Vitalik" Vladasovich Grachyov , better known by his stage name
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...

 Vitas (icon; ), is a Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

 singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

.

Known for his high falsetto voice, he has been given the nickname "Prince of the Dolphin Voice
Whistle register
The whistle register is the highest register of the human voice, lying above the modal register and falsetto register...

" (海豚音王子, pinyin: Hǎitún yīn wángzǐ) in China. His eclectic pop music is often difficult to categorise, incorporating elements of techno, dance
Dance music
Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...

, classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

, and wild shrieking. His 2000 song, "Opera No. 2" ("Opera #2"; released as a single in 2001) has been forwarded frequently via the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

, which accounts for much of his worldwide recognition. He designs his own stage costumes. DIVA (ДИВА) is the name of the band that accompanies Vitas during his concerts.

Vitas has achieved much notability through Russian television, and since 2005 his career has advanced into Asian markets. He has signed with entertainment labels such as Universal
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...

 which distributes his music in Taiwan, and he has toured extensively in China and several other countries. He has performed duets with many other singers including Demis Roussos
Demis Roussos
Artemios Ventouris Roussos is a Greek singer and performer, best known for being the main musical partner of movie soundtrack composer Vangelis and a string of international hit records as a solo performer in the 1960s and 1970s...

, Lucio Dalla
Lucio Dalla
Lucio Dalla is a popular Italian singer-songwriter and musician. He also plays clarinet and keyboards.He is the composer of Caruso , which has been covered by numerous international artists...

, and Vitas' grandfather Arkadiy Davydovich Marantsman (Аркадий Давыдович Маранцман), with whom he sings "Friendship".

Early life

Born Vitaliy Vladasovich Grachyov on 19 February 1981, in Daugavpils
Daugavpils
Daugavpils is a city in southeastern Latvia, located on the banks of the Daugava River, from which the city gets its name. Daugavpils literally means "Daugava Castle". With a population of over 100,000, it is the second largest city in the country after the capital Riga, which is located some...

, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

, Vitas was raised in Odessa, Ukraine, and is of Russian descent. He showed an interest in music from an early age. The young Vitaliy's grandfather taught him to play accordion, and he began writing songs as a child. He later studied music more formally. He attended an art school in Odessa and as a teenager appeared in various theatrical productions. He was "discovered" by a visiting producer/manager, Sergey Pudovkin, who asked Vitas if he would come to Moscow. This invitation was extended on the basis of Vitas' acting skills: Pudovkin had not yet heard him sing. Vitas travelled to Moscow with demos of his music and began working with Pudovkin.

Rise to fame and early career

Vitas came to public attention in Russia in December 2000 with hit Opera No. 2, which was notable for his surprisingly high-pitched and energetic vocals.

His concert program Philosophy of Miracle premiered at the State Kremlin Palace
State Kremlin Palace
The State Kremlin Palace , formerly and unofficially still better known as the Kremlin Palace of Congresses , is a large modern building inside the Moscow Kremlin....

 on 29 March 2002, establishing a record for Vitas as the youngest artist ever to perform a solo concert at this prestigious venue. A DVD of this concert was released. He also presented his fashion collection "Autumn Dreams" on the stage of the State Kremlin Palace on 29 September 2002.

Vitas received an invitation from Lucio Dalla
Lucio Dalla
Lucio Dalla is a popular Italian singer-songwriter and musician. He also plays clarinet and keyboards.He is the composer of Caruso , which has been covered by numerous international artists...

, the composer, who created "Caruso"
Caruso (song)
"Caruso" by Italian singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla in 1986. It is dedicated to Enrico Caruso, an Italian tenor.-Unclear meaning of the song:Controversially, the song simply tells about the pains and longings of a man who is about to die while he is looking in the eyes of a girl who was very dear to...

, to perform this song together with the author at the concert "San Remo in Moscow" held in the State Kremlin Palace in 2003. Vitas' voice enchanted not only the audience but Mr. Dalla himself, so the composer invited Vitas to come to Rome to take part in the rehearsals of "Toska", the modern version of the legendary opera.

Vitas presented his second solo program "The Songs of My Mother" in the Russia Concert Hall, Moscow in November 2003. Two albums: "The Songs of My Mother" and "Mama" of the artist were released for the premiere. The album "The Songs of My Mother" included the songs which are considered to be the gold reserves of Russian pop-music. Another album "Mama" included several new songs composed by Vitas. The two albums were a dedication to his mother who died in 2001. Vitas' management, the Production Center "Pudovkin" organized a major world tour with the program "The Songs of My Mother" in Russia and the USA, Germany, Kazakhstan, Israel and the Baltic States in 2004–2006.

Vitas starred in a murder mystery television series called "Beloved Scoundrel" in English, and "Сволочь ненаглядная" in Russian in which he played (appropriately) a pop singer with an unusually high voice. He also starred in a comedy called Crazy Day.

Development of music and image

In June 2006, Vitas was invited by CCTV
China Central Television
China Central Television or Chinese Central Television, commonly abbreviated as CCTV, is the major state television broadcaster in mainland China. CCTV has a network of 19 channels broadcasting different programmes and is accessible to more than one billion viewers...

 to take part in the grand event "The Year of Russia in China" in Beijing. Vitas performed two songs, Star and "Opera No. 2," in that program. This marked the start of Vitas' popularity in China. In the following years he toured extensively in China and also performed at a welcoming ceremony prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Vitas' "Return Home" tour started in 2006. More than twenty new Vitas' compositions were included in the this tour. The concert performed in St. Petersburg on March 4, 2007 was later released on DVD on his website as well as officially in some countries, though many songs have been removed. The full concert in Moscow was later released on DVD, but is only purchasable on Vitas' website as well as at his concerts.

In October 2007, Vitas was signed with now-defunct American label Gemini Sun Records. Gemini Sun has released the Audio Visual Connect Series Vitas compilation CD + DVD set featuring 8 music videos with the corresponding songs also on audio CD, plus a bonus audio track.

In 2008, he also released his single Light of A New Day, a 40-minute track of non-lyrical vocalization and instrumentation. The song is available as a free download on his website.

The "Sleepless Night" tour includes concerts in China and has a more elaborate presentation than the "Return Home" programme. Vitas performed his "Return Home" concert in Bucharest, Romania on 25 February 2009. This concert was broadcast on Romanian television networks TVR2 and TVRi, achieving their highest ratings in twelve months Also, a benefit concert, with Vitas performing "The Star" was held on 12 May 2009 in Sichuan province in memory of the victims of the earthquake that occurred the previous year; a song known as "Mommy and Son" was released in late October 2009 in remembrance of earthquake victims. This is the very first title track of the new album "Mommy and Son" (released on September 1st, 2011), which includes new songs, such as "C'est La Vie" (which translates to "That's the way life is" in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

), "Once More", "Let the Father Teach!", "Young Rook" and others. (The upcoming Brazilian edition of Vitas' album "Mommy and son" will include the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 Version
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

 of the song "Раз два три" - "One-Two-Three" in Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

).

Vitas played the role of Wude in the Chinese film Mulan
Mulan (2009 film)
Mulan, known in Chinese as Hua Mulan, is a 2009 Chinese film starring Zhao Wei as the titular protagonist. The director, Jingle Ma, has explained that this film is vastly different from the 1998 Walt Disney animated film and adheres more to his imagination...

, which premiered in Beijing on November 16, 2009. He has recorded music for the film's soundtrack.
In early 2011, Vitas performed a series of seven Sleepless Night concerts in North America. Concerts were held in New York, Toronto, Chicago, Miami, Vancouver, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Vitas also appeared in the 2011 Chinese film The Founding of a Party
The Founding of a Party
The Founding of a Party, alternatively titled in English Beginning of the Great Revival for its international release, is a Chinese film released in 2011 to mark the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party of China...

, playing the role of Grigori Voitinsky
Grigori Voitinsky
Grigori Naumovich Voitinsky aka Zarkhin was a Comintern official during its creation, and was sent to China in 1920 as an advisor to contact the prominent Chinese radicals such as Chen Duxiu, just before the formation of the Communist Party of China...

. He will also star along with Huang Shengyi
Huang Shengyi
Huang Shengyi , also known as Eva Huang, is a Chinese actress and singer.-Biography:Huang was born and raised in Shanghai. Her father was educated in the United States and lived there in the early 1990s, while her mother worked as an editor in a newspaper agency in Shanghai...

 in the upcoming musical One Night To Be Star.

Awards and achievements

Year Category Recording
2001, 2002, 2003 Best selling single Russian Record Prize "Opera # 2"
2001 "Komsomolskaya Pravda" and Internet Survey "FORUM 2001" Musical Discovery of the Year
2000, 2001, 2002 Three-time-laureate of the festivals "The Song of the Year-2000", "The Song of the Year-2001" and "The Song of the Year-2002"
2001, 2002 Two-time-laureate of the People Prize "Golden Gramophone" "Opera # 2", "Smile!"
2001, 2002, 2003 Three-time-laureate of the Musical Prize "PODIUM" for the most stylish achievements in pop music
2001, 2002, 2003 Russian "People’s HIT" Prize "Opera # 2", "Smile!", "The Star"
2001, 2003 Radio station "HIT FM" Prize "100 Per Cent HIT"
2002 National Musical Prize "Ovation" Soloist of the Year
2004 Russian Internet portal AFISHA.COM
2007 Order of Service to the Arts
2007 Best Album – NewsMusic Poll "Crane's Crying"

Albums

Russian English Year
Философия чуда Philosophy of Miracle
Philosophy of Miracle
Philosophy of Miracle is the debut album by Russian singer Vitas , released in 2001. It is sometimes translated as Philosophy of a Miracle, Philosophy of Wonder or Wonders of Philosophy. It has reportedly sold at least 3.5 million copies in China...

 
2001
Улыбнись Smile!
Smile! (Vitas album)
Smile! is a Russian album by Vitas , released in 2002. Several songs from this album featured in his Philosophy of Miracle concert programme, whose performance at the Kremlin earned Vitas a record as the youngest artist to perform a solo concert at the State Kremlin Palace; a DVD of this concert...

 
2002
Мама Mama  2003
Песни моей мамы The Songs of My Mother
The Songs of My Mother
The Songs of My Mother is a Russian album by the singer Vitas. It was released in 2003, simultaneously with Mama. Both albums were a tribute to his late mother...

 
2003
Поцелуй длиною в вечность A Kiss as Long as Eternity
A Kiss as Long as Eternity
A Kiss as Long as Eternity is a Russian album by Vitas , released in 2004. The album sold over 2 million copies within the first 6 months of its release...

 
2004
Возвращение домой Return Home 2006
Криком журавлиным, Возвращение домой II Crane's Cry, Return Home Part 2 2007
Хиты ХХ века XXth Century Hits 2008
** Audio Visual Connect Series: Vitas (CD + DVD) 2008
Скажи, что ты любишь Say You Love 2009
Шедевры трех веков Masterpieces of Three Centuries 2010
Романсы Romances 2011
Мама и Сын Mommy and Son 2011

Concert Tours Programmes

Russian English Year
Философия чуда Philosophy of Miracle
Philosophy of Miracle
Philosophy of Miracle is the debut album by Russian singer Vitas , released in 2001. It is sometimes translated as Philosophy of a Miracle, Philosophy of Wonder or Wonders of Philosophy. It has reportedly sold at least 3.5 million copies in China...

 Tour
2002–2003
Песни моей мамы The Songs of My Mother
The Songs of My Mother
The Songs of My Mother is a Russian album by the singer Vitas. It was released in 2003, simultaneously with Mama. Both albums were a tribute to his late mother...

 Tour
2003–2006
Возвращение домой Return Home Tour 2006–2009
Бессонные ночи Sleepless Night Tour 2009–2011
Мама и Сын. Избранное. Лучшее и новое для Вас Mommy and Son. The Best and New For You 2011–present
Мировое тур "Скажи, что ты любишь" "Say You Love" World Tour 2011–present

DVDs

Russian English Year
Витас в Кремле Vitas in the Kremlin 2002
Песни моей мамы The Songs Of My Mother 2003
Возвращение Домой Петербург Return Home in St. Petersburg 2007
Возвращение домой Москва Return Home in Moscow 2007
Лучшее от Витаса на DVD The Best from Vitas on DVD 2007
** Myth Of The Shaking Soul Voice1 2007
** Audio Visual Connect Series: Vitas (CD + DVD) 2008
Бессонная ночь Петербург Sleepless Night in St. Petersburg 2010

1. Listed on official site as The Song Of My Mother: same tracklisting as The Songs of My Mother DVD, repackaged for the Chinese market

Singles/EPs

Russian English Year
Опера №2 Opera No. 2 2001
До свидания Good-bye 2001
СВЕТ НОВОГО ДНЯ Light of a New Day 2008

Videos

Original English Year
Опера №2 Opera No. 2 2000
Опера №1 Opera No. 1 2001
Блаженный Гуру Blessed Guru 2001
Улыбнись! Smile! 2002
Звезда The Star  2003
Мама Mama 2003
Птица Счастья The Bird of Happiness
Aleksandra Pakhmutova
Aleksandra "Alya" Nikolayevna Pakhmutova has remained one of the best known figures in Soviet and later Russian popular music since she first achieved fame in her homeland in the 1960s....

 
2004
Поцелуй Длиною В Вечность Kiss As Long As Eternity 2004
Берега России Shores of Russia 2005
Лючия ди Ламмермур2 Lucia Di Lammermoor
Il dolce suono
"Il dolce suono" is the incipit of the recitativo of a "scena ed aria" taken from Act III scene 2, Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti...

 
2006
Криком Журавлиным Crane's Crying 2006
ЯМАЙКА Jamaica 2007
青藏高原1 Tibetan Plateau
Tibetan Plateau
The Tibetan Plateau , also known as the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau is a vast, elevated plateau in Central Asia covering most of the Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai, in addition to smaller portions of western Sichuan, southwestern Gansu, and northern Yunnan in Western China and Ladakh in...

 
2008
La donna è mobile
La donna è mobile
"La donna è mobile" is the cynical Duke of Mantua's canzone from Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto . The inherent irony is that it is the callous playboy Duke himself who is mobile...

2
La donna è mobile
La donna è mobile
"La donna è mobile" is the cynical Duke of Mantua's canzone from Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto . The inherent irony is that it is the callous playboy Duke himself who is mobile...

2009
Люби меня Love Me 2010
Раз два три One-Two-Three 2011

1 Sung in Chinese.
2 Sung in Italian.

External links

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