History of the group "Aria": composition, albums, biography

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

In this material, the history of the Aria group will be presented to your attention. You will also find photos of the participants in the article. Aria is a Russian heavy metal band. It is one of the most successful rock bands in Russia. At the same time, the team managed to achieve creative and commercial success not only among heavy metal fans. The team was awarded the Fuzz award as the best live group. Former participants formed other well-known groups, including Arthur Berkut, Arteria, Mavrin, Kipelov, Master. This galaxy is called the "family of Aria." Most of the band's lyrics were written by Margarita Pushkina, and the music is mainly by Vitaly Dubinin.

Origins

The history of the creation of the group "Aria" began with the acquaintance of two of its future musicians-participants Vitaly Dubinin and Vladimir Kholstinin. They met while studying at MPEI. There, the guys created an amateur group "Magic Twilight", which played rock. About Dubininlet's talk briefly.

The history of the group "Aria" at the initial stage was associated with this man as a singing bassist. Soon Arthur Berkut took the place of the vocalist. In 1982, Dubinin left the group to complete his education. Berkut received an invitation to become a vocalist in the Avtograf art-rock group, and the Magic Twilight project ceased to exist.

Kholstinin, together with Alik Granovsky, became part of the Alpha group. During the struggle with amateur teams from 1982 to 1984. the musicians were forced to look for a place in the official VIA.

Early period

The biography of such a person as Viktor Vekshtein also influenced the history of the Aria group. Between 1982 and 1983, he was the director of the VIA "Singing Hearts" and pondered the idea of creating a new team that could play in a modern style.

Without clear preferences regarding the musical style of the future association, Vekshtein decided to invite young musicians, allowing them free creative search, relying on the technical capabilities of the previously created group. So Vitaly Dubinin was invited to the new team.

He left the group a few months later to study vocals at the Gnessin Academy. After his departure, Kholstinin and Granovsky decided to join the Singing Hearts group. The new vocalist Valery Kipelov also moved there, after the collapse of the Leisya Song ensemble.

Playing as accompanying musicians as part of the "Singing Hearts", in parallel, Granovsky and Kholstinin created a group that, as planned, shouldwas to play heavy metal. Vekshtein remained the artistic director and manager of the new team. He provided a studio for the musicians. Kholstinin came up with the name of the group.

Fans and musicians of the group subsequently began to be called "Aryans" due to the name. Granovsky, Kholstinin and Vekshtein began to select the composition of the team. During this period, Nikolai Noskov, guitarist Sergei Potemkin, keyboardist Alexander Myasnikov tried out as members of the group. In 1985, Valery Kipelov was approved as the permanent vocalist of Aria.

Drummer was Alexander Lvov, who was the sound engineer of "Singing Hearts". Kirill Pokrovsky took the place of keyboardist and backing vocalist. The musicians called the date October 31, 1985 the band's birthday. On this day, work was completed on their debut studio album called Delusions of Grandeur.

The material was released on a magnetic cassette by samizdat. This work was heavy metal, similar in spirit to American and English bands like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. The album was recorded with one guitarist, which was Holstinin. The second guitarist Andrey Bolshakov was invited for concert performances.

Igor Molchanov replaced Lvov on drums, who remained as the band's sound engineer. The first concert "Aria" played in 1986, February 5, in the Palace of Culture of the MAI. The group performed as their own opening act as the then better known "Singing Hearts". Soon the group took part solo in Lituanika and Rock Panorama. There, the team was greeted with approval, and Aria took away several awards.

Fragmentperformances from "Rock Panorama" with the composition "Torero" were included in the musical release of the television program "Merry Fellows". This was the first appearance of "Aria" on television. For about six months, Aria's concerts took place in a semi-underground mode. The posters announced only the performance of "Singing Hearts".

At the same time, in one of the sections of the concert, the program “Arias” sounded, in the other, the musicians began to accompany Antonina Zhmakova as participants in the “Singing Hearts” in the program approved by the Mosconcert. It was possible to do this only in the provinces during the tour, since ideological control was much weaker there compared to Moscow.

This practice could not continue for long. Vekshtein used his influence at his disposal to secure the submission of the "metal" program to the artistic council, as a result he received permission for the performance of the group "Aria" under a new name in one of the concert departments.

To justify the name, the program included opera arias performed by Vitaly Usov, a vocal teacher. The authorship of the compositions of "Aria" was attributed to the classics and members of the Union of Composers. The author of the "Volunteer", in particular, was David Tukhmanov, and the text of the song "Torero" was "given" to Federico Garcia Lorca.

The efforts were successful, on September 12, 1986, after listening on the stage of the AZLK Palace of Culture, the commission of the Ministry of Culture approved the program of the solo concert, as well as the name of the band "Aria".

Andrey Bolshakov, having joined the group, began to offer his own songs related to the style of JudasPriest. Granovsky became interested in arrangements and, in terms of musical tastes, rather shared the direction of Bolshakov than Holstinin.

Composition with Mavrin

In the history of the group "Aria" since 1987, Vitaly Dubinin appeared as a bass player. He was invited to the team by Vladimir Kholstinin and Valery Kipelov. Also guitarist Sergey Mavrin and drummer Maxim Udalov join the band.

At this stage in the history of the Aria group, the problem of choosing a repertoire arises. The musicians begin to reflect on the album. The record appears in 1987 at the Melodiya company.

Time of Troubles

In 1994, a bright event took place in the history of the Aria group - a tour of Germany. The musicians performed in seven cities in two weeks, among other things, they gave a concert at the Hard Rock Cafe in Berlin. Through the fault of the organizers, the trip took place in terrible conditions, and it also did not bring any income. The scandal with the organizers grew into an internal conflict in the team.

Squad with Terentiev

Some time the history of the rock band "Aria" was associated with the name of Sergei Terentiev. Initially, he replaced Mavrin, but soon established himself in the team as a permanent member and took up active songwriting.

In 1998, "Aria" released the disc "Generator of Evil", which included songs by Sergei Terentyev. The tour in support of this work almost fell through due to an accident, in which drummer Manyakin became a participant. Maxim replaced him for six monthsGood luck.

Doomsday

The history of the group "Aria" experienced hard times during the recording of the album "Chimera". Valery Kipelov noted that during the period of work on this disc, an unhe althy atmosphere reigned, and each author recorded songs separately.

In 2001, the tension grew into an open conflict between the musicians. In 2002, Kipelov suggested that Kholstinin and Dubinin suspend the group's activities for a while in order to engage in solo projects.

Contribution to music

"Aria" is the first nationally known and commercially successful metal band in Russia. Polls show that Aria is in the top 10 most famous rock bands in the Russian Federation. The success of the team contributed to the development of the direction of "heavy" music in Russia. "Aria" is actively touring not only in the CIS, but also in far abroad countries.

Style

The main genre of "Aria" was traditional heavy metal with its English school: long guitar solos, high-pitched vocals, galloping guitar riffs. Critics accused the group of lack of originality, as well as borrowing some musical moves from other bands.

Vitaly Dubinin noted that the melody and melodiousness of "Aria" distinguishes the band's music from Iron Maiden. The group was also influenced by classical music. In some songs, for example, "In the Service of the Force of Evil" and "Playing with Fire", fragments of classical works by Paganini, Borodin and other composers are quoted. Later, the band's style becomes more independent.

Former guitaristgroup Bolshakov believes that "Aria" owes its success to the talent of Vitaly Dubinin as a composer. Aria has a penchant for lyricism in her rock ballads. "Shard of Ice", "Calm", "Paradise Lost" were broadcast by radio stations when harder works remained unformatted.

After changing the line-up and the vocalist, the band's repertoire began to again be dominated by heavy compositions, in addition, elements of power metal appeared. However, musicians do not consider themselves to be part of this genre.

Members

In the history of the Aria group, the composition changed quite often. The first step is to introduce the current team members. Mikhail Zhitnyakov is the vocalist, Vladimir Kholstinin plays solo and rhythm guitar, Vitaly Dubinin takes over the bass guitar, keyboards, guitar, backing vocals, Sergey Popov is also the guitarist, Maxim Udalov is in charge of the percussion instruments.

Former members of the group: Alik Granovsky, Kirill Pokrovsky, Igor Molchanov, Andrey Bolshakov, Sergey Mavrin, Valery Kipelov, Alexander Manyakin, Sergey Terentyev, Artur Berkut. Among the tour musicians of the group are Alexei Bulkin, Dmitry Gorbatikov, Alexander Tsvetkov, Mikhail Bugaev. Session musicians include Alexander Lvov and Alexei Bulgakov.

Behind the scenes

Discussing the history of the Aria group, the personal life of the musicians, the following should also be mentioned. Mikhail Zhitnyakov has a wife, Anna, and a daughter, Sophia. Vladimir Kholstinin loves classical music, in particular Beethoven and Wagner. Kholstinin is an agnostic, skeptical about religion, prefers the philosophy of Nietzsche. He has a daughter whoname is Nika.

The first wife of Vitaly Dubinin was producer Marta Mogilevskaya. In this marriage, a son, Andrei, was born. The musician's second wife's name is Larisa. From her, the musician has two sons - Alexander and Alexei. Sergei Popov is married, his wife's name is Svetlana.

Discography

There are many albums in the history of the Aria group. The first disc "Mania of grandeur" was released in 1985. The group also released the following albums: “Who are you with”, “Hero of asph alt”, “Playing with fire”, “Blood for blood”, “Night is shorter than day”, “Evil generator”, “Chimera”, “Baptism by fire”, “Armageddon", "Phoenix", "Through Time", "Curse of the Seas".