Valeriya

Valeriya (Валерия) is the stage name of Alla Yurievna Perfilova (Алла Юрьевна Перфилова; born April 17, 1968), a Russian singer and fashion model.

Valeriya was born on April 17, 1968, in a town of Atkarsk in the Saratov Oblast.

In 1985 Valeriya enrolled in the Gnessin State Musical College in Moscow which she graduated 1990.

In 1989 Valeriya recorded two albums.

Her first English-language disc, The Taiga Symphony came out in 1991 via Shulgin Records.

Pobud' so mnoi (Stay with me), a collection of traditional Russian romances, was released by Lad Records a year later.

In 1992 she won the first prize in a national TV contest Morning Star.

Also that year she won the international contest Bratislavskaya Lira and received an Audience Choice Award at Yurmala-92.

In 2005 Valeriya was awarded the Honoured Artiste of Russia title and ranked 9th in the Forbes magazine list of 50 most highly paid people in movie, sport, literature and music industry.

In March 2009 Valeriya was invited to join as a special guest Simply Red's "The Greatest Hits" Tour in the UK.

She also took part in the Russian National Final for Eurovision 2009 with the song "Back to Love" and later finished second behind "Mamo" by Anastasia Prikhodko.

In 2010, Valeriya joined forces with Avon as a celebrity judge for Avon Voices, Avon's first ever global, online singing talent search for women and songwriting competition for men and women.

She has been a member of the Council for Culture and Art under the President of the Russian Federation since 2012.

Valeriya, who is a recipient of the titles People's Artist of Russia (2013) and People's Artist of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (2016), has also won numerous awards, including Golden Gramophone (thirteen), Pesnya goda (thirteen), Muz-TV (four: Best Performer in 2004, 2010 and 2015, Best Video, 2014), and MTV Russia Music Awards (two, Best Performer, 2004, Best Song, 2005).

Valeria's 2013 studio album Po serpantinu featured four duets (with Valery Meladze, Nikolai Baskov, Alexander Buynov and, notably, Goran Bregovich, one of her all-time favourite artists).

Most of the reviews, though, centered on the Russian chanson-tinged title track and "I Will Be Waiting for You", the latter included into the comedy Polar Flight soundtrack.

It was followed by the Best Of compilation Eto vremya lyubvi (This Is the Time of Love), which included "Ty moya" (You Are Mine), the duet with her daughter Anna Shulgina.

Valeriya's 2016 studio album Okeany served well to "prove the singer's intention to remain a 'a healthy man's perfect female singer'," but her "'formula of happiness' here is here being pronounced with the strictness of a harsh pedagogue," according to critic Alexey Mazhayev.

The material for her 2017 studio album K solntsu (Towards the Sun) has been provided by the team of young, unknown songwriters, including Cyrill Yermakov from Belarus, "but if the idea was to bring in the feeling of freshness, it succeeded only in fragments," according to Mazhayev.

Highly successful though proved to be the singles "Minor Infarctions" and "The Heart Is Broken".

The video for the latter gathered 112 million views on the YouTube in the first week.

Public activities and statements of the singer have triggered and still trigger mixed, at times even strident response in the neighboring (to Russia) countries.

Valeriya has been married three times.

Her first husband was Leonid Yaroshevsky, her second husband was Alexandr Shulgin.

She is currently married to Iosif Prigozhin.

Valeriya lives in Moscow.