| Aida Vedishcheva | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Ida Solomonovna Weis |
| Also known as | Amazing Aida |
| Born | June 10, 1941 |
| Origin | Kazan, Soviet Union |
| Genres | Pop, Folk |
| Instruments | Vocals |
| Years active | 1960–1990 |
Aida Semёnovna Vedishcheva (Russian: Аида Семёновна Ведищева, born Ida Solomonovna Weis, Russian: Ида Соломоновна Вайс, 10 June 1941, Kazan) is a Soviet singer of Jewish descent (Kievan Jews). In the 1960s she contributed songs to several film soundtracks, including "The small song about bears", "Help me", "Forest deer", "Bear-mama lullaby", and "Chunga-changa".
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Aida Vedishcheva was born in Kazan (administrative center of Tatar ASSR) in the family of professor of medicine Solomon Vais, who arrived from Kiev just before World War II. In 1951 her family relocated to Irkutsk in Siberia. There Vedishcheva finished her Music School, where she performed in the student theater of musical comedy. Afterward she enrolled (by her parents' request) into the Institute of foreign languages, where she studied both the German and English languages. Upon graduating from the institute, Vedishcheva left for Moscow, where she tried to enroll into the Supreme Theatrical Institute of Shchepkin, but did not succeed. After that she began her singing career due to her strong and beautiful voice.
She began her singing performance from the start of the 1960s in the Kharkiv philharmony. Vedishcheva sang in the Oleg Lundstrem orchestra and then Leonid Utёsov. Since 1966 she was performing along with the "Meloton" ensemble as well as the Vocal-instrumental ensemble (VIE) "Blue Guitars" led by Igor Granov. The same year (1966) Vedishcheva became a laureate of the First "All-Union Concourse of a Soviet Song". She achieved national recognition after singing "The small song about bears" in 1967 for the movie Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (7 million records were released). In 1968 for her song "Geese, geese" ("Gusi, gusi") she received a diploma at the Sopot International song festival (the Polish Baltic Sea coast). That was followed by such songs as "Volcano of desires" ("Help me") for the movie The Diamond Arm (1968), "Comrade" ("For the friendship was carried by comrade on waves...", 1970), "Forest deer" for the movie Way to go Nastia! (1972), and others.
Not paying attention to her success among the listeners, she met numerous obstacles, as did several other song performers of Jewish descent (including Vadim Mulerman, Larisa Mondrus, Maya Kristalinskaya). Among such obstacles were cases of her name not making into movies credits, cancellation of concerts, cold receptions on television, a prohibition of concert tours abroad, demagnetized tapes with her records on radio. For example, her song "Forest deer" was recognized as the Song of the Year, but on the television it was performed by the Loktev ensemble. From the mid-1970s Vedishcheva disappeared from the credits of movies and cartoons. She finally left with her mother and son for the United States in 1980.
In America, Vedishcheva had to start her singing career from the ground up. She enrolled into the four-year theater college where she learned American cinematography and dance. At first Vedishcheva resided in New York, then she moved to Los Angeles due to the climate causing her some health problems. In the USA she was able to receive her recognition, creating her own theatrical troupe and a show on the TV in California. Vedishcheva, under the pseudonym Amazing Aida, was performing mostly the American repertoire: songs of popular Broadway musicals and Hollywood movies, and beside them the songs of Michel Legrand, Russian and Gypsy romance songs, as well as Jewish traditional songs.
In the beginning of the 1990s she was diagnosed with cancer of third degree. Despite doctors' precautions Vedishcheva insisted on her surgery, going through chemotherapy, after which the disease yielded.[1]
In 1998 Vedishcheva put on the show Miss Liberty for the new millennium. After the September 11 attacks she wrote the musical "Masterpiece and the singing Liberty" and dedicated it to the Statue of Liberty. The musical was performed on Broadway in 2007.[1]