Leonid Agutin

Leonid Agutin is a Russian pop and jazz musician and songwriter. Leonid Agutin has a successful career of 27 years and 13 albums selling over 10 million copies in Russia, Eastern Europe and the US. He has been rewarded with 10 Golden Gramophones, Russian equivalent to the Grammy, as well as other 27 international awards. Along with receiving a regular school education, the young Agutin also completed a course of musical study on the piano at the Moscow Jazz school "Moskvorechie". He later served in the army on the Russia-Finland border. In 1991, Leonid Agutin started touring the Soviet Union with a musical act. Two years later, he graduated from the Moscow State Institute of Culture. He took part in and won the 1992 Yalta international pop music contest, and also won a similar contest in Jurmala in 1993. Agutin released his first solo album, Bosonogiy Malchik ("Barefoot Boy") in 1994, which was a success and launched his career. The album ascended the charts and he won Golden Gramophone awards for "Singer of the Year", "Song of the Year", and "Album of the Year". The album included the hits "Hop hey, la la ley" and "Golos visokiy travy" (Sound of the Tall Grass). In 1995, Agutin released his second album, titled "Dekameron". It was another commercial success and, along with Filipp Kirkorov, Valeriy Meladze, and Lyube, Agutin became one of the most successful recording artists in Golden Gramophone balloting. Recorded in Miami, 2005's Cosmopolitan Life was an attempt to break into international markets. While it brought huge success in Germany, the push to conquer Italy, Eastern Europe, and the U.S in the same way was less fruitful. Nevertheless, Cosmopolitan Live, a 2008 documentary film about Leonid Agutin and Di Meola - featuring footage of their performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival -compounded his popularity in Germany. After taking time out to raise his daughter, Leonid Agutin returned in 2012 with Time of the Last Romantics, and from that year onwards appeared regularly as a judge on the Russian TV version of Golos (2012). In 2020, he marked the 15th anniversary of Cosmopolitan Life by releasing La Vida Cosmopolita, a Spanish-language album featuring contributions from musicians of eight different nations. He recorded "La Vida Cosmopolita", an album created especially for Latin America.