How it all started...
Dima Koldun was born on June 11th, 1985 in Minsk. Nothing seemed to foreshow a musical career for
this gangling and skinny boy. He was equally good at all school subjects. He was always trying
himself in something new and thrilling, tried a lot of things and enjoyed them. He was very
enthusiastic in his many hobbies and sometimes those hobbies were quite unusual. As an example – one
day he wrote a text, where all words started with the same letter. This piece of work was published
in a weekly newspaper "Arguments and Facts Belarus". However this event had no impact on Dima\'s
future profession. He didn\'t become a wordsmith. Neither he joined those who worked at a polymer
plant, despite the fact that he graduated from the Faculty of Chemistry, Belarus State University.
But his elder brother Georgy became his Finger of Fate: "You either play the guitar or will go and
mop the floor", he warned Dima. And those words have practically fixed Dima’s fate. The guitar
became Dima\'s true "girl-friend". It turned out that the guy had a good ear for music and also
pleasant voice. It did not take long before Koldun Junior came to stage-manage a band of musicians.
They started their regular rehearsals in a school basement or in a garage, making the residents of
nearby houses get scared with the loud roar of guitars. He also became a frequent participant of
different youth singers’ competitions, which he never left without getting a prize.
First steps towards fame
Grass-roots first heard about Dmitry Koldun in 2004, when he participated in "Russia" TV channel
show – "People\'s Artist-2". The project hairstylist Sergey Zverev created an image of a bright
blond boy for Dmitry. The young debutant reached the final competition, but he didn\'t get any
award, though he made an impression on the audience – they remembered Dmitry.
Not long before "People\'s Artist" competition Dmitry worked for Belarus state concert orchestra
conducted by Michael Finberg. The singer was a soloist in "Grand-Prix" vocal studio, managed by
composer Oleg Eliseenkov. Dmitry performed with this group at Belarusian folklore festivals:
"Molodechno-2005" and "Slavonic bazaar". But he didn\'t forget about various music contests either.
In that very 2005 D. Koldun got into the finals of the "Starry Stage-Coach" national Belarusian
project participated by young performers. He was also invited by "Gale Warning" Moscow joint KVN
(one of the Russian TV panel games) team to participate in the KVN Euroleague. There Dmitry was able
to demonstrate his good sense of humour and vocality during musical off-periods.
In November 2006 D. Koldun made up his mind to participate for the first time in EuroFest casting to
represent Belarus Republic, with his own song "Maybe". However then he failed to get into
"Eurovision 2006" international song contest. But he kept dreaming of it…
The "Star Factory"
However his participation in the casting for the First TV Channel project "Star Factory-6" under
Viktor Drobysh was a success. On March 10, 2006 the beginner singer determinately declared from the
TV screen: "Koldun, you are the best!” And he did as he said – on June 29 Dima won at "Star Factory"
qualification by the audience voting. One of the brightest Dima\'s appearances in the competition
was joint performance of the Scorpio\'s song "Just Loving You". The legendary group soloist Klaus
Meine liked Koldun\'s performance so much that he invited him to join them in a tour.
Since June 2006 Dmitry became the soloist in renewed "KGB" pop-group (Koldun, Gurkova, and
Barsukov). The pop-group was produced by Viktor Drobysh, the composer. The group performed in a
"Star Factory" road show, after which it sank into oblivion.
"Eurovision"
In 2007 Dmitry Koldun again decided to conquer Eurovision contest, which was to take place in
Finland, Helsinki. In November 2006 under severe competition he wins over Belarus semi-final casting
for Eurovision-2007 with the song "Angel of Dream" (music by D. Koldun, lyrics by D. Lis), which
later was replaced with a new one (an acceptable practice according to the contest regulations). In
January 2007 he gloriously won in the finals with the song "Work Your Magic" (music by F. Kirkorov,
lyrics by K. Kavaleryan).
After Dima\'s conquest of the EuroFest active preparation for Eurovision-2007 started, including
endless rehearsals and promo-tours. In St.Petersburg video clips for a song "Work Your Magic" and
its Russian version "Give Me Power" (lyrics by A. Morsin) were shot. The video was directed by a
well-known clip maker Oleg Gusev.
On May 10, 2007 Dmitry under Filip Kirkorov management successfully performed in semi-finals, in
that way for the first time he managed to bring Belarus, his homeland, into Eurovision-2007 finals.
Two days later, by the results of the international audience voting, he gained the honorable 6th
place.
By his performance at Eurovision-2007 the singer made headlines as a gifted performer. Viktor
Drobysh and Filip Kirkorov started hot disputes for the right to produce Dima. For months they were
debating in mass- media. But as it turned out – to no avail. In 2007 composer Alexander Lunev, who
created the famous Eurovision-2006 hit "Never Let You Go" for Dima Bilan, became Dmitry Koldun\'s
producer.
The Debut Album
Since that moment the creative work on Koldun\'s debut album and his regular performance in concerts
started. In parallel from December 2007 to March 2008 the singer, together with actress Natalya
Rudova, participated in the First TV Channel show "Two Stars-2". Dmitry tried very hard to teach the
actress to sing, but he turned out to be much worse in teaching than in singing. The result of
duet\'s efforts was the 6th place. However they became champions in nomination "The most frequently
saved by the audience ": the audience liked those two performers so much that they didn\'t want them
to leave the project.
On February 1, 2008 at "Sound track" award ceremony Koldun won in the nomination "Sexy M" and
presented a new song by Alexander Lunev "Tsarevna" ("Princess"). In March 2008 a video clip was shot
on this song. It was directed by clip maker from Ufa Vitaly Mukhametzyanov. The main idea of the
clip was to feature artist Dmitry Koldun\'s life. The idea was to show not only working routine
moments – concert performances, rehearsals, but also his leisure hours. That\'s why that video came
out to be very dynamic: it displayed the love story, sports work-outs and extreme motorbike ridings.
Famous boxer Kostya Tszyu was invited to the shooting. He played the role of Dima\'s coach.
On March 8, 2008 one more clip on Lunev\'s song "I am for you" (director O.Gusev) was put into
rotation. The same video clip was used by the First TV channel in "The Beauty Demands for..."
musical.
New Cycle in the Music Fate
In the summer of 2008 Dmitry took part in Slavonic bazaar yearly festival in Vitebsk, where he
presented new songs "Surrender" and "Through the Veins", recorded on his own. In parallel with work
on his first album, Dmitry records songs of his own writing both music and lyrics.
In October 2008 Dmitry accepts the invitation by the authors of a remake of the rock-opera “Star and
Death of Joaquin Murieta, composer Alexey Rybnikov (“Juno and Avos’”) and Dmitry Chetvergov (guitar)
to record an audio version of the protagonist. Later, having been persuaded by the authors of the
musical, he agreed to perform the legendary outlaw on stage. Fisrt-night show of the project will
take place in late November 2008.
On November 7th, 2008, Koldun and his musicians appeared in the Minsk Palace of Sports (Belarus) to
open a concert of the legendary German group Scorpios, where he presented to the versed audience six
songs he had written himself (“Bad News”, “Unemployed Love”, “Angel of Dream”, “It’s not Paradise”,
“Southbound Train” and a new version of “Give Me Power”).
19 January 2009 Dmitry, who used to perform on stage of the Palace of Sports as the EuroFest Contest
winner tried himself as a host of the national musical TV project EuroFest 2009 (Belarus) and sang
several songs as a special gest.
In February 2009 together with his colleague Alexander Astashonok (of the “Roots”) the singer
establishes his own sound recording studio Yashcheritsa (Lizard) in Moscow. His fans are given an
opportunity to monitor its activities and witness recording process and rehearsals of the group in
the on-line mode
On April 29th 2009 the singer presented his first ever recital named “KOLDUN” in the city of
Korolyov, the Moscow Region. Together with his group of musicians Dmitry presented his fans both
well-known songs and new ones, some of which will be included into his maiden album. The live sound
of the concert, powerful and beautiful voice of Dmitry Koldun’s were highly appreciated by the
audience.
June 2009 became another momentous event in the creative life of Dmitry Koldun. On June 8th, upon the invitation of the Organizers, the Artist presented his new concert program with live sound to numerous audience of the 20th Open Russian Film Festival “Kinotavr” in the city of Sochi. On June 25th the 10th “Idol of the Air” Radio Award Ceremony took place in St. Petersburg. Dmitry Koldun was nominated and awarded as the best Radio Hit Singer with his love ballad “Tsarevna” (music A.Lunyov, lyrics O.Tomashevsky). His closest runner-ups were Irakly (with “This Doesn’t Happen”) and Stas Piekha (“Line on the Palm of the Hand”). Then the collection of the singer’s awards was supplemented with the gold-plated bronze statuette “Idol of the Air”, the music award that is presented only once in one’s life.
On September 3rd and 26th, respectively at “B-2” Club in Moscow and at “Reactor” Club in Minsk, the Artist presented to the audience his maiden album. His promo tour around Belarus in December in support of the album turned out to be a success. On September 27th Dmitry accepted the proposalby the Belarus ONT TV Channel and hosted the final show of the International Beauty Contest “Miss IntercONTintental – 2009” together with his brother Georgy Koldun and Yekaterina Doman’kova (winner of Belarus “Supermodel-2006”).
It is just the beginning...
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