Guralia, Gela

Born on December 22, 1980 in the Georgian town of Poti ( Samegrelo-Zemo-Svaneti region ). He sings since childhood, at the age of five he spoke to a large audience for the first time at a concert in honor of the Day of the City. From grades 1 to 9, he studied at the Poti First Gymnasium, then studied at the Lyceum on a chemical and biological profile; He won in chemistry contests. In grades 10-11, he was a delegate to the children's parliament of Georgia ^[1] . From an early age he sang in the church choir, was a soloist in the folk ensemble "Fazisi", as well as in the VIA "The White Seagull" in the city of Poti ^[2] . He graduated from the School of Art in acting class. He plays the piano .

According to the stories, Gela often came to Russia, where his father lived and worked in Nizhny Novgorod for a long time ^[3] .

After school, he entered the Faculty of Chemistry at Tbilisi State University , but in the final year of his studies he made the final decision to link his further professional life with music, left the university and moved to Moscow with the musical group ^[4] . He began his career in Russia with performances in a restaurant where he worked until 2008. ^[2] However, Gela emphasizes that his repertoire has never been “restaurant” ^[5] .

In 2012, in Georgia at the Bravo Records studio, Gela began recording a solo album, but after watching Voice on Channel One, he postponed work on his own project for the sake of participation in the next competition season ^[6] .

Participation in the Voice project

On September 20, 2013, Gela Guralia becomes a participant in the second season of the Voice project - performing the song by the composer Mark Minkov on Verses Tushnova’s “ Do not deny loving ” verse at the Blind Listens , he is in the team of Dima Bilan ^[7] .

At the stage of Gela Fights, with Polina Konkina, Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand sang “Tell Him” ^[8] , specially adapted for their duet, and went to the next stage of Knockouts .

At the knockouts stage with the song “I Knew I Loved You” ^[9], to the music of Ennio Morricone from the movie “ Once Upon a Time in America ”, he won again. In the quarter finals he performed the song of the Earth Song by Michael Jackson and went on to the next round, receiving 50% of the mentor and 77.7% of the audience ^[10] . In the semifinal with the song of Olga Kormukhina, “The Way” goes to the final of the project, receiving 63% of the audience and 40% of the mentor ^[11] . The young Georgian artist reached the very end, taking the third place in the main vocal competition “Voice” ^[12] .

During the project, on October 23, 2013, Gela Guralia performed at the State Kremlin Palace at the anniversary gala concert of the Phonograph-Sympho-Jazz orchestra, headed by Honored Artist of Russia, pianist, conductor and composer Sergey Zhilin .

On November 25, 2013, according to numerous requests from the Channel One audience, an online conference was held on the official website of the channel, in which Gela spoke about himself and answered questions from the audience ^[13] .

Patriarch's Blessing

Gela is an Orthodox Christian. As a child he sang in one of the temples of his native city of Poti. Later, he recorded his version of the church song “Kyrie eleison” to the music of Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II . While participating in the Gol, Gela received invitations from Ilia II ^[14] . At a meeting in Tbilisi, he gave the record “Kyrie eleison” to the Patriarch, and in response received a blessing and a gift - a pectoral cross and a bracelet. Gela considers meeting with the Patriarch a miracle in her life ^[15] . After “The Voice”, Gela again receives an invitation from the Patriarch to celebrate his birthday on January 4, 2014. Gela records the second song specifically for the music of Elijah II - “Ave Maria” , and the “Phonograph-Sympho-Jazz” orchestra takes part in the recording. Sergey Zhilin . The next day, Gela performs the “Kyrie eleison” in the Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Tbilisi, where Ilia II himself conducts the liturgy ^[16] .

Record Solo Album

In January 2014, Gela Guralia resumed recording a solo album at the Georgian recording studio “Bravo Records”, and then continued it in Moscow at the studio “Chemodanov Production”. The album includes three songs by American composer Jud Friedman, (author of the song Whitney Houston and many other hits) ^[17] , two songs in Russian by Nika Nikvashvili, and five songs in Georgian, the music for which was written by Georgian composers Dzhumber Amanatashvili and Nato Totibadze, and the poems are the poet Nana Tsintsadze. There are a total of 10 songs in the album ^[18] . Gela presented the first English song from his debut album, Stone by Stone, on January 20, 2014 on the Georgian channel GDS TV ^[19] .

On October 15, 2014, the presentation of the debut album Dream of Me and the video for the song of the same name, which was worked on by the famous music video director Irina Mironova, took place ^[20] .

On June 5, 2015 on the Russian Musicbox ^[21] channel, the premiere of Gela Guralia’s second video for the song “You Know” ^{[22] took place} . Composer Konstantin Legostaev, poet Alexander Kovalev. The director of the clip is Alexey Rusakov ^[23] .

Concert Tour

On March 8, 2014, Gela Guralia began a concert activity. His first concert tour takes place throughout Russia, covering the cities of Krasnodar , Rostov-on-Don , Novgorod , Kazan , Perm , Dzerzhinsk , Nizhny Novgorod , Tula , St. Petersburg , Ufa , Samara , Yaroslavl , Orel , Belgorod , Krasnoyarsk , Tomsk , Novosibirsk , Barnaul , Tyumen , Chelyabinsk , Yekaterinburg , Ivanovo , Vladimir , Irkutsk , Khabarovsk , Vladivostok , Anapa , Novokuznetsk , Nalchik , Petrozavodsk , Tver ^[24] .

Together with Gela Gouralia, the following musicians take part in the concerts: Nika Nikvashvili (until March 1, 2015), Dmitry Ilugdin (March 7-8, 2015), Alexander Pakhomov (from June 8, 2015) - a grand piano, Ilya Dragunov - solo guitar, Andrei Ruznyaev - bass guitar, Bogdan Kotov - drums. The concert program includes songs from Gela’s solo album (Stone by Stone, Coming Home Again, etc.), songs performed on “The Voice ” (“The Way”, “Do not Renounce, Loving”, etc.), as well as a number of other famous world hits (" Proud Mary ", " Smile ", " Earth Song ", " Autumn Leaves ", etc.)

November 18, 2014 in the State Kremlin Palace held a solo concert of the artist, accompanied by a string symphony orchestra and his musical group ^[25] . The invited guests were Polina Konkina, Olga Kormukhina , Tamara Gverdtsiteli , Eteri Beriashvili, Georgy Melikishvili, Nodar Revia. At the concert, the first song of the debut album Dream of Me, written by Jud Friedman, was performed for the first time.

On March 1, 2015, a big concert was held in St. Petersburg, accompanied by a string symphony orchestra at the Music Hall Theater, to which Gela Guralia invited Vadim Azarkh to perform ^[26] .

On March 3, 2018, the second Moscow solo concert of Gela Guralia took place in the Column Hall of the House of Unions with great success. Among the invited guests were composers Alexander Zhurbin and Giga Kvenetadze , singers Margarita Pozoyan and Achi Purtseladze ^[27]

• 2014 - Dream of Me

• 2014 - Dream of Me ^[28]
• 2015 - you know ^[29]
• 2018 - To the East ^[30]

• 2018 - The Russian Top Award in the nomination "The Best Song of 2018" ("To the East") (according to the results of Internet voting) ^[31] .
• 2016 - The Russian Top Award in the nominations "Best Solo Performer of 2016" and "Best Song of 2016" ("You Are My Love") (according to the results of Internet voting) ^[32] .
• 2016 - Winner of the "Love of the People" award in the nomination "Hope of Russia" ^[33]
• 2015 - The Russian Top Award in the nominations "Best Solo Performer of 2015" and "Best Song of 2015" ("You Know") (according to the results of Internet voting) ^[34] .
• 2014 - Winner of the “Golden Wave” contest in the nomination “People’s Choice”, Georgia ^[35] .
• 2014 - The winner of the reader's vote on the Musecube portal "Best Album 2014" - Dream of Me ^[36] .
• 2014 - Russian Top Award in two nominations - Best Solo Artist of 2014 and Best Album of 2014 (Dream of Me) (according to the results of Internet voting) ^[37] .
• 2013 - The Russian Top Award is the best solo artist of 2013 (according to the results of Internet voting) ^[38] .
• 2006 - Audience Award. All-Russian competition "Golden Voice" ^[39] .
• 2005 - Audience Award. International Competition "Songs of the World" in Comrat, Moldova ^[40] .

• Alexander Gradsky : “You proved to everyone today, I’m sure to everyone, Gela that the human voice is capable of conveying the same feelings as the real string instruments that play in Hollywood Orchester, and sometimes even better, because this is the text, this is the soul, it is a direct living impact. You just nailed me today with your skill and skill, and I admire, and I can’t say anything but admiration for your address ” ^[41] .
• Lyubov Kazarnovskaya : “Gela has a gentle, beautiful and singing voice timbre. Probably, he could have become our Demis Roussos, because he has in his vocals, as the Italians say, “Caprino” - kozletonchik, lamb - gentle, non-irritating vibration. What was famous for Roussos. If he works on vocal technique and skill, searches for exact repertoire things, he can melt women's hearts. They will applaud and throw their caps into the air. Today in Russia there is nothing of the kind ” ^[42] .
• Dina Garipova : “Gela is a representative of the original genre. He is a very peculiar performer with an individual way of delivering sound that is difficult to repeat. At the same time he is a sincere and technical vocalist. Even from the first performance I thought: what a professional! ” ^[42]
• Olga Kormukhina : “June 5th concert. And it is called "Best". Although I wanted to call him “Best of”, because I would like to once again focus this audience’s attention on those young performers who became very interested in me, those who bend their chip are Tina Kuznetsova and Gela Guralia from the show Voice. “. Indeed, each of them is unique. Tina is also the author, arranger, amazing musician. Such people really want to help and in every way assist in the promotion of such wonderful creativity ” ^[43] .
• Alexander Zhurbin : “It is still under the impression of yesterday’s concert in the Column Hall of the talented singer Gela Guralia ... He’s not like anyone, and he is engaged in art, not pops or self-promotion ... Almost 3 hours of the most varied repertoire, both in Russian, and in Georgian, and in English, and in French, and all this is very serious and truly ... Good luck to you, Gela! Let the world hear you! ” ^[44]

• Official site
• Official page Guralia, Gela in the social network " VKontakte "
• Official page Guralia, Gela in the social network Facebook
• The official group of Gela Guralia in the social network "VKontakte"
• Conference with Gela Guralia on Channel One
• Article about Gela Guralia on intermedia.ge (inaccessible link) (load.)
• Article on tabloid.ge (load)
• Interview with Gela Gouralia on Imedi Channel (cargo)
• The miraculous voice of Gela Guralia
• Gela Guralia: My music will help children! * Gela Guralia Channel on SoundCloud website
• Official video channel Gela Guralia on Youtube
• Kuzmina, Julia. Life without a “Voice” // Evening Moscow , No. 39 (27176), October 8–15, 2015, p. 14.
• At the concert of Gela Guralia in Voronezh gathered fans from Moscow, from the Urals and even from Argentina
• "The sky so decided" (about the concert with the choir of the Sretensky monastery on January 19, 2017)