As a child, Diana was abused by her parents, and eventually abandoned in the middle of the brutal Russian winter. When she was rescued, she had a broken collarbone and suffered from developmental and speech deficits that were probably the result of the abuse. Placed in an orphanage, she likely would have remained there had she not been adopted by one of the staff members (at the urging of that person’s own daughter).
To help Diana overcome her speech deficit, a therapist suggested singing lessons. Her teachers soon discovered that she had an extraordinary voice and loved performing, and she began singing in shows and children’s festivals at every opportunity. Her big coming out took place when she was 14, and performed on Ты супер (“You’re Super”), a Russian show similar to The Voice, but restricted to orphans and children with disabilities. She won the show that year, and then again the following year when they held a series just for previous winners. Those performances, and others since then, have gone massively viral on youtube, and for good reason: She has a powerful, haunting voice, and her stage presence is riveting.
Here is her opening performance from Ты супер. It’s a cover of the French pop star Indila’s biggest hit, “Derniere Danse” (“Last Dance”).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mve3-fEuTHA
Here is her semi-final performance from the same show. “Rechenka” (“River”) is a Russian folk song in which an orphan prays to the dead to bless her wedding because she has no one else to do so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35Dwo4QVLqs
The following season, now 15, she covered Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”. This arrangement perfectly captures the harmonics that make her voice sound so surreal. Some central Asian folk singers train to produce this kind of resonance. Hers just seems to come naturally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jv-DQnf2UY
More Diana to come.
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