Lena Katina

Lena Katina
Lena Katina in 2008
Background information
Birth name	Elena Sergeevna Katina
Born	(1984-10-04) 4 October 1984 Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Origin	Moscow, Soviet Union
Genres	Pop rock[1][2]
Occupations	Singer
Instruments	Piano
Years active	1992–present
Labels	T.A. Music, Such Much Productions
Associated acts	t.A.T.u., Neposedi, Julia Volkova
Website	official website

Elena Sergeevna Katina (Russian: Елена Серге́евна Катина pronunciation: Yelena Sergeyevna Katina), born October 4, 1984, better known as Lena Katina, is a Russian singer and songwriter who is best known for her work with Russian duo t.A.T.u. She started her career at the age of eight, joining the Russian children's act Avenue, then not long after Neposedi. In 1999, Ivan Shapovalov had chosen Katina for his project, t.A.T.u., as well with Yulia Volkova. The duo would later become Russia's most successful pop music act. t.A.T.u. produced several hits including "All the Things She Said", "Not Gonna Get Us" and "All About Us".

In 2009, Katina began a solo career, which led t.A.T.u. to go into a hiatus. In 2011, Katina and Volkova officially split to pursue solo careers. That year, Katina released her first mainstream single "Never Forget", which in 2011 reached No. 1 on the MTV Russia Top 10 and also won the MTV Russia - 2011 Video Of The Year. The track also reached No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play and reached No. 1 in Greece.

Early years

Lena Katina was born in Moscow on October 4, 1984 to the famous musician, Sergey Katin - who collaborated with "Dyuna", Marina Khlebnikova and other representatives of Russian show-business. Starting at just 4 years old, on her father's initiative, Lena began to attend various sport and music clubs for the purpose of fostering plastic arts and artistic talents. When she was seven, Lena entered an ordinary school and within a year she entered music school for piano classes. When she was ten, she joined the famous children group "Avenue" as a soloist where she would sing for the next 3 years. When she was 13, Lena became a member of vocal and instrumental group "Neposedi" (Naughty Children) where she met Yulia Volkova with whom she became friends. At the casting, she sang a song in French and the jury were astonished by the quality of her voice. Soon Lena left the group due to her age - children sing in "Neposedi" up to 14 years old. At the age of 15 she was successfully cast as a member of the pop duo "t.A.T.u.". Later on, Yulia Volkova (who was second only to Katina, according to the casting results), was selected due to there being "something missing". Yulia was only supposed to feature in the song "Ya Soshla S Uma", but Ivan eventually added her to the band.

Music career

1999-2011: t.A.T.u.

Creator and then-manager of t.A.T.u., Ivan Shapovalov stated that the idea of t.A.T.u. stemmed from the common fascination and fantasy of school-girl lesbian lovers among men, knowing that the duo would be highly appealing to a diverse fan-base.

After auditioning 400 girls, Shapovalov selected Katina for t.A.T.u. at the age of 15. With the project still in development, Katina had the opportunity to record demos (credited as t.A.T.u.), like "Belochka" and "Yugoslavia". The then 14-year old Yulia Volkova was added to the project some time afterward, and in 2001, the duo rose to popularity in Russia, and later in the world.

Feeling satisfied with his choices, Shapovalov signed Volkova and Katina to t.A.T.u., but the contract with Shapovalov also demanded that the girls present a lesbian image. After breaking away from Shapovalov in 2004, the girls came clean and stated that Shapovalov had created the lesbian image, and that they were even told what to say in interviews.^{[citation needed]}

t.A.T.u. soon became the most successful Russian group of all time, leaving a number of hits behind them, such as "All the Things She Said", "Not Gonna Get Us" and "All About Us". They also took part in Eurovision Song Contest 2003 and finished third with Ne Ver', Ne Boysia. In 2007, Katina, along with her bandmate, Yulia Volkova, starred in a film You and I, with Mischa Barton playing the lead role. The film was directed by Roland Joffe and was presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008. The film was released in 2011 and 2012.

She has recorded in several different locations such as Los Angeles, New York and her hometown Moscow. She is known to be mostly recording in Los Angeles. It has been confirmed by the official t.A.T.u. website that Katina is to undertake a solo career under the guidance and management of the T.A. Music label. She started working with t.A.T.u. band-members in mid-2009 and is expected to release an album in 2011.^[3] In March 2011, t.A.T.u. officially disbanded. The group celebrated their 12 years together, and released two remix albums entitled Waste Management Remixes pt. 1 and Waste Management Remixes pt. 2.

On the 13th of December during a live chat, Katina was asked what she thinks of Volkova's new video "All Because Of You" to which she replied "I think it [all because of you] is very Julia. Julia is Julia." The rest of her comments were lost due to technical issues on the live chat.

2010–present: forthcoming solo album

Katina hosted a fan event at The Trail in Los Angeles on May 29,2010 ^[4][5] and gave her first solo performance on May 30, 2010 at the Troubador in Los Angeles.^[6] Katina was the opening act of PrideFest in Milwaukee on June 12, 2010.^[7] On the day of her performance at Pridefest, Katina released a free download of a song from her upcoming album called "Lost in this Dance".^[8] On September 17, 2010, Katina performed at the San Francisco club 1015 Folsom.^[9] On February 3, Katina was scheduled to give her first performance of 2011 at the XLV Party in Dallas, Texas' Cotton Bowl, with The Village People, Cazwell, Lady Bunny, DJ Hector Fonseca and DJ Enferno.^[10] The concert, however, was canceled on January 31 when only 13 tickets for the show had sold.^[11] In 2011, the film featuring her acting debut, You and I, was released in Russia. The film also featured t.A.T.u.'s other half, Yulia Volkova, and the band, as well as actress Mischa Barton.

Alongside the release of Lost In This Dance, she recorded the single "Guardian Angel" with the Canadian post-hardcore band, Abandon All Ships, featured on their 2010 debut album Geeving, which was released in October. On Friday, June 17, 2011 Katina's single "Never Forget" premiered on the Mexican radio station FMTU 103-7 in Monterrey, Mexico.^[12] On Monday, August 1, 2011, the singer revealed the trailer the music video. On August 2 the official video was leaked on Perez Hilton's blog^[13] On Friday, August 5, 2011, Katina officially released her music video for "Never Forget"^[14] and released the song on iTunes as a single, which also includes her song "Stay".^[15]

Katina and her band appeared on Rawsession, where she performed original acoustic versions of Owl City's "Deer in the Headlights", Alexandra Stan's "Mr. Saxobeat", and her own "Never Forget".^[16] All videos were released officially via YouTube^[17] and eight months later, the songs were release in the EP "RAWsession 07-14-11".^[18] She also collaborated with Mexican synthpop band Belanova and filmed a video for the song they recorded together titled "Tic Toc".^[19]

On 19 September 2011, Katina released a new song, "Waiting", while being interviewed by Echo of Moscow Radio.^[20] On December 9, 2011, Katina released a new song, "Keep On Breathing" via Kroogi, which was used as a fund-raising song for helping Japanese children who have been suffering from the earthquake and tsunami.^[21]

During a video conference with her fans on the 13th December, Katina was asked by a fan for information on when her album would be released, to which she replied: "I also would like to know the answer to this question [laughs]... I am trying to find a label, but they don't want me, for some reason..." Katina's connection to fans went down at this point and the remaining comments made by her were lost.

Katina's single "Never Forget" reached number one in MTV’s "Russian Top 10 - Year in review" chart.^[22][23] The song failed to enter the top 100 airplay charts in Russia, peaking at number 244.^[24]

Since then Katina has released several songs including "Waiting", "Lost In This Dance", and "Keep On Breathing", and has performed several songs live such as "World", "Just A Day", "So Not Cool" (The Beast), and "IRS" in both English and Russian.

On September 30, 2012, Katina's collaboration with rapper T-Killah, "SHOT", was released on Love Radio. In April 2013, the Russian version "Ya Budu Ryadom" was released.^[25]

In December 2012, Katina parted ways with Boris Renski and his team, moving to Los Angeles to work on a limited edition triple CD for release in early 2013 and a Spanish language EP.

Personal life

Since her early childhood, Katina's hobbies have included artistic gymnastics, ballroom dancing, figure skating, swimming and horseback-riding. She is also a skilled pianist and also enjoys reading, especially romance novels. Katina stated in a 2006 TeleHit interview that she used to listen to artists such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Pink Floyd when she was younger.^[26] Her younger half sister Katya has a different father and her half brother Ivan has a different mother. She was raised religiously and is a practicing Russian Orthodox Christian.

Katina married her boyfriend of 3 years, Slovenian musician "Sash Kuzma" (Sasha Kuzmanović) in Moscow and Ljubljana in August 2013.^[27]

Discography

Singles

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Other appearances

References

External links

• t.A.T.u. official website
• Lena Katina Bob Wells Radio

• Lena Katina at the Internet Movie Database