Levan Lomidze is a musician who, with his work, refutes the conventional wisdom about Russia as a country of chanson and romances. Levan plays the blues, and the schedule of his performances is scheduled months in advance, and the most respectable audience comes to the concerts.
Biography
The musician was born in the fall of 1964 in Tbilisi into the family of a teacher and engineer. He had the most ordinary Soviet childhood - a high school, an October child, then a pioneer, a music school in the piano class. Parents dreamed that their son would become a doctor and tried to give their son only the best - knowledge of languages, art, exact sciences.
Schoolchildren then went crazy for foreign musicians, who were very different from the standard Soviet stage, looked for records from dealers, listened to jazz and blues compositions.
When Levan Lomidze was 11 years old, an event happened that turned his life upside down. BB King, an American master of blues, came to Tbilisi on tour. He performed at the Philharmonic right opposite Levan's school, and the boy managed to get to the concert. And he was incredibly lucky - after the performance, the "King of the Blues" threw his personal pick into the hall, right into the hands of the admired Levan.
Soon, the guy began to play the guitar donated by his father. Together with his friends, he created a blues group, which was supervised by Vakhtang Kikabidze himself, a famous Soviet and Georgian singer - his son played drums in this group. Kikabidze took young performers with him on tour, insisted that they receive a good education and do not forget to improve in creativity. This is how Lomidze's professional career began.
Creative way
After the restructuring by the 2000s, Levan left for Hamburg with his group Blues Cousins. And a little later he was invited to France to perform at the Blues Sur Seine festival. After the success and receiving the People's Choice Award, the guys were offered to take a tour of the cities of France. At the same time, Lomidze's first foreign record was released, followed by a tour of European countries: Yugoslavia, Czech Republic, Poland, Germany.
The musicians performed successfully everywhere, signed contracts for the next year, including 12 blues festivals in the USA. In 2004, the first disc of the Russian blues band in America, Alive in the USA, was released, created with the label Jazz Stream Records. Since then, for several weeks a year, Levan will perform in the United States, where he has many grateful fans.
For three years Levan was the art director of the famous Suzdal blues festival Total Flame, constantly performs in clubs and philharmonic societies, in his music he perfectly combines Georgian folk melodies with blues rhythm. Lomidze lives in Moscow, was recognized as the best Russian blues musician, was awarded by the mayor of the capital for his active participation in the "Rock Against Drugs" action and prefers not to talk about his personal life.
