Singer Pavel Smeyan: biography, personal life, cause of death

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Last year, the actor, composer, multi-instrumentalist and singer Pavel Smeyan (whose biography is presented in this article) would have turned 60 years old. This publication contains some interesting facts from the life and work of the famous artist.

Childhood of P. Smeyan

The hero of our article was born in 1957 in Moscow, in a family where both parents worked in film production. The grandfather and grandmother of the future singer were professionally engaged in music. Pavel Smeyan was not the only child of mom and dad: forty minutes after him, his twin brother Alexander was born.

Adult family members, each of whom was no stranger to creativity and art, decided to raise children in the best traditions of Soviet education. From an early age, both brothers were assigned to a music school. In an interview with various publications, Pavel Smeyan told the following about the early period of his biography: he and his twin brother were so similar that it was not an easy task to distinguish one from the other.

Witty children often came up with jokes and pranks basedOn this. Once, when Alexander had to take an exam at a music school in the subject "General Piano", in which he was not very strong, Pavel went to the test instead, drawing a mole on his cheek, which was the hallmark of his twin brother.

Childhood Friends

Quite often questions about the early pages of the biography of Pavel Smeyan were asked by correspondents of various newspapers and magazines. The actor also told such an interesting point about his childhood: a boy lived nearby, who later played the main role in the famous Soviet film "Kortik".

Together with him, the future singer sometimes participated in street hooliganism and pranks. For example, they stole fruit several times from a food stall near their home.

Music idols

Smeyan was brought up in a family where the love of music was passed down from generation to generation, from childhood he played and listened to the works of classical composers in the recordings. He always liked opuses that were quite complex in their harmony and texture, so Slonimsky and Debussy became the boy's favorite academic composers.

The appearance of rock music in the biography of Pavel Smeyan

The artist's childhood fell on the heyday and the greatest popularity of rock music. He heard the first songs in this style when older comrades brought portable tape recorders into the yard, from the speakers of which the voices of American and British stars were heard. The new music immediately won the heart and determined the desire of the young man toprofessional art.

Pavel Smeyan, who always had an amazing sense of humor, once told about a comic incident that happened to him as a teenager. Once he and his brother were invited to play in an amateur ensemble of the local palace of culture. At the disposal of this group were chic Czech electric guitars for those times.

With this instrument the boy came to the music school and asked the teacher if she could give him the sheet music of Chuck Berry's "Move over, Beethoven". When she shook her head, Pavel said that he was very sorry and left. In the evening, the telephone rang in the apartment. The teacher told the parents that their son came to class in the morning with some strange object that looked like a gun, said that he was unhappy with Beethoven and left the school.

Beginning of professional activity

The creative biography of Pavel Smeyan began at the moment when he and his brother graduated from high school and entered the Moscow Gnessin School at the pop faculty (in the saxophone class). Simultaneously with their studies, the twins played in a group they created called "Victoria". In the two years of the existence of this team, young people managed to achieve some popularity and get a job at the Mosconcert.

How Pavel Smeyan became a theater actor

In the early eighties, one of Smeyan's friends, Chris Kelmi, who played at that time in the Autograph group, said that the theater"Lenkom" requires a new musical team to participate in the rock opera "The Death of Joaquin Murieta" as an accompaniment.

All members of the group, being professionals in their field, were able to learn the parts overnight and in the morning appeared before the artistic commission, headed by director Mark Zakharov. After playing all the numbers from the performance, they showed the council members their own program, which consisted of hard rock compositions.

Mark Zakharov, Nikolai Karachentsov and Alexander Zbruev liked the performance, and the team was hired. The theater director allowed his wards to improvise not only musically, but also as participants in the performance. For example, members of the band could indulge in some kind of cue during the performance, or even leave the orchestra pit and walk with the instrument around the stage. Zakharov immediately liked the excellent plasticity of the new musician Pavel.

This caused a turning point in the biography of Pavel Smeyan. When Aleksey Rybnikov's new rock opera "Juno and Avos" was staged on the "Lenkom" stage, a separate role was introduced into the play for the artistic musician - the narrator. After the musician decided to leave the theater in the mid-eighties, a difficult question arose before the leadership of the corpse: who would replace him? The second similar artist could not be found. Until now, his role is played by two actors. One is responsible for the dramatic component of the party, and the other for the musical.

Other projects

After leaving the theater, the actor played in many musical groups, recorded an album with an ensemble called "Apostle" in the early nineties, consisting of his own songs.

Loved by the audience of the Lenkom Theater as a rock opera artist, Pavel Smeyan was invited several times by other theaters to participate in musicals. In the last years of his life, he actively worked on the creation of his own rock opera "Word and Deed", which was written based on the novel by Alexei Tolstoy.

Also, Pavel Evgenievich participated in recording music for such famous films as "Mary Poppins, goodbye!" and "The Trust That Burst".

Private life

Pavel Smeyan, whose biography and creative path is discussed in this article, was married three times. The first wife of the musician was the famous singer Natalia Vetlitskaya.

In his last marriage, the actor had a son, who is currently 9 years old.

An untimely death

The artist's twin brother died tragically in the early eighties. The circumstances of his death are still unclear.

Pavel Smeyan in 2009 heard terrible news from doctors. He was diagnosed with cancer. Treatment abroad did not give the expected result. The cause of death in the biography of Pavel Smeyan is usually called pancreatic cancer. The actor and musician passed away on July 10, 2009. He was buried on Khovanskycemetery.

In conclusion

The creative heritage left by the musician has more than 100 songs. Many of these works he wrote himself. A collection of his recordings was released last year, including both his lifetime albums and previously unreleased material.