Did Alisa Vox leave Leningrad because of Shnur’s greed?

Alisa Vox is a famous Russian singer who received recognition and love as the lead singer of the Leningrad group. The young girl worked as a club artist for a long time, subsequently releasing several interesting solo albums that were popular with listeners. The biography of the singer is extremely interesting, who, after leaving Leningrad, began independent activities, successfully recording new discs and filling concert halls.

Childhood and adolescence

Alisa Kondratieva, known under the pseudonym Vox, was born in St. Petersburg in 1987. The girl’s mother, noticing her talent and desire for music, did her best to develop her daughter’s desire to perform on stage. Initially, Alisa was enrolled in the ballet studio at the Lensovet House of Culture. The parents kept the girl on a strict diet, but it later turned out that the child had no predisposition to artistic choreography.

At the age of four, Alice is transferred to the Music Hall's children's studio for young talents for stage and choral classes. It was at this time that the girl discovered excellent vocals, so Kondratieva, while still a preschooler, began performing on stage in various children's performances. She played the main role in the performance “Alice's New Year's Adventures,” which was directed by Andrei Skvortsov. For more than 10 years, the future famous artist danced and sang in various children's productions.

As a child, Alice was interested in:

• singing;
• dancing;
• swimming;
• amateur performance.

It is not surprising that with such a busy schedule there was simply no time left to study at school. According to Alisa, her lessons were extremely difficult for her; she often lagged behind her peers and could not do her homework correctly. The parents, seeing that their daughter began to fall behind in school, decide to take the girl away from the Music Hall, but Alice set the conditions that she would continue her musical studies, but improve her performance at school. And, indeed, in her final grades, Vox began to study better, receiving a good certificate.

In parallel with singing, Alisa became interested in dance sports, attended training sessions in the evenings, and soon became a member of the Dance Sports Federation. She participated in various competitions, representing her district at various city creativity competitions.

As a child, Alice was a lively, active and extremely talented child, and she remained the same when she turned into a young beautiful girl.

Study at GITIS and St. Petersburg

Immediately after completing her studies at school, the girl enters the Moscow GITIS in the pop department. Lyudmila Afanasyeva, who was able to educate more than one celebrity, becomes Alisa Kondratiev’s teacher. It was she who made the girl study hard, believe in success and her own strength. Alisa fondly remembers the time spent at Moscow GITIS.

However, at that time, the young girl had financial difficulties, she got a part-time job at a karaoke bar, performed as a singer in disco bars, but such work did not bring her much income, and life in the capital was extremely expensive. Her parents also did not have the financial ability to help Alice, so she had to leave the theater institute and return to her native St. Petersburg.

In St. Petersburg, Alice quickly entered the University of Culture and Art, where she studied in the pop-jazz vocal department. Having successfully graduated from high school, the girl gets a job at the NEP restaurant-cabaret, working there as a vocalist and working part-time at numerous weddings and cooperatives. Alice remembers this time as a good life experience that allowed her to learn how to find an approach to every person. At the same time, the singer was well aware that she should not stop there and should try to record singles, including working in famous St. Petersburg clubs.

Biography

Childhood and studies

Born on June 30, 1987 in Leningrad. From the age of four, for a year, she attended the ballet studio at the Lensovet Palace of Culture, and later began studying in the children's studio of the Music Hall, where at the age of six, Alice discovered her voice during choir classes. There she was soon offered the main role in the play “Alice’s New Year’s Adventures, or The Magic Book of Wishes.” However, since theatrical activities interfered with her studies, her parents took Alice away from the Music Hall at the age of eight. While studying at school, Alisa continued to attend music clubs, was a member of the Dance Sports Federation, studied vocals and represented the district at city competitions.[4][3]

After school, Alisa entered the St. Petersburg State Academy of Theater Arts (SPbGATI), a year later she moved to Moscow and entered GITIS. Alisa names GITIS vocal teacher Lyudmila Alekseevna Afanasyeva as the teacher who gave her a start in life,[4] who trained more than one celebrity before Alice.[4][5]

At the age of 20, she returned to St. Petersburg and entered the University of Culture and Arts in the pop-jazz vocal department.[4]

Starting a career in show business

After returning from Moscow in 2007, Alisa met her former choreographer, Irina Panfilova, who taught her modern jazz at the age of seven, and she invited Alisa to work as a vocalist in the NEP restaurant-cabaret. She combined this work with running corporate events, weddings, and working in karaoke bars.[4] Then the stage name MC Lady Alice appeared.[3] After a successful performance in the elite nightclub “Duhless” in the style of “vocal hosting” (lines from famous songs accompanied by an electronic DJ beat), tours began (Yerevan, Tallinn, Turkey, Voronezh) and good earnings.[4]

Participation in the group "Leningrad"

In 2012, she successfully passed the selection for the position of session vocalist in the Leningrad group, whose repertoire Alisa was familiar with from the 10th grade of school. Alisa came to the group to replace Leningrad soloist Yulia Kogan, who had gone on maternity leave. Alice's first performance as part of the group took place in Germany. Six months later, when Yulia Kogan returned from maternity leave, the soloists performed together, but Kogan soon left the group. On September 5, 2013, at Chaplin Hall, Alisa Vox performed for the first time as the main soloist of the group.[4]

As part of the group, Alisa Vox performed such hits as “Patriot”, “37th”, “Prayer”, “Bag”, “In short”, “Dress”, “Crying”, “Exhibit” and others.

On March 24, 2020, Alisa Vox announced on her Instagram page that she was leaving the Leningrad group and starting a solo career.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14 ][15][16].

The leader of the group, Sergei Shnurov, commented on the departure of Alisa Vox quite sharply; the media perceived his comment as an accusation of “stardom” of the ex-lead singer of the group [6] [11]:

I didn't promise anything to anyone. At my own whim, I turn average singers into stars. I come up with an image, material, and promote it. I decide how to present them so that they will be loved. Well, not exactly theirs, an image, of course. Through the efforts of our team, we create a mythical heroine out of nothing. This is our job. And it is precisely because we do our job well that complaints and discontent arise. The audience loves the image we created and really doesn’t want the end. But it is inevitable. The Heroines of the myth, invented by me and created by the team, quite quickly and naively begin to believe in their own Divine nature. But we don’t know how to deal with Goddesses. We are burning pots here...

Alice Vox herself commented on her departure from the group as follows:

After 3 years of working together, relations with Sergei began to gradually deteriorate. He increasingly lashed out at me for no reason, I cried a lot, then I even got sick... We stopped understanding each other. I told Sergei about my decision to leave the team on March 12, 2020. In that conversation, I immediately reassured him that I would remain in the group until I found and introduced a replacement. He took this news calmly, even friendly. I asked to stay until July. I agreed. We discussed technical issues, laughed, hugged and kissed goodbye... I started looking for vocalists, showed him demo recordings of different girls. I brought Vasilisa to the team, she worked for a year after I left. In the meantime, we went to Ufa, played a great concert, after which Shnurov stopped answering the phone and answering SMS. I learned from Vasilisa that it is forbidden to even pronounce my name in the group, and from the group’s logistician I learned that two new girls will go to big concerts in Moscow on March 24. Just before the concert, Sergei called, said something incomprehensible, and eventually hung up without even allowing me to say goodbye to him as a human being.

Sergei says that women don’t leave him. Apparently, I was the first to leave him, so he was confused, for a long time he didn’t know what to say, and in the end he said that he fired me for star fever. In general, he said a lot of nasty things about me undeservedly. Later, in an interview with Yuri Dudu, he finally admitted that I left on my own. But the trail of loud headlines and obstacles placed on all sides still haunts me. What would I like to tell him? What can you say to a person whom you regularly supported, treated, fed, consoled, inspired and encouraged, and he does the same to you? I have never been so mistaken about people. But I forgive him. Apparently, I am his weakness. But this does not justify him[17].

Solo career

On July 22, 2020, the first solo album “Sama” was released. All songs on the album are translations into Russian of songs by the Ukrainian group Skryabin, whose frontman, Andrey Kuzmenko, died in a car accident in early 2020. Alisa Vox donated the proceeds from the sales of the disc to the musician’s family[18]. Music critic Sergei Mezenov from Colta.ru believes that “the plastic sound of the record is quite deliberately glued together from old-fashioned synthetic pulsations, referring not even to the times of the “new wave”, but to the first pioneer camp discos from cassette players”[19].

On May 15, 2020, a video for the song “Baby” premiered on YouTube, which criticized the participation of young people in protests. According to sources on the Meduza website and the Dozhd TV channel, the singer received 2 million rubles for the filming as part of a “state order”[20], and the customer and author of the concept for the video was a former employee of the Russian Presidential Administration and functionary of the United Russia party Nikita Ivanov[21]. The clip was extremely negatively received by the public and received a huge number of negative reviews. Alice Vox herself, in a conversation with Meduza, stated that she “wrote the song not about politics” and that she was “taking a time out” and “going into radio silence” due to fatigue from media attention[22].

First musical successes

Alice Vox's first truly major success came when the artist began collaborating with the famous Dukhless club. The singer, performing in this establishment, often improvised on stage, singing lines of famous songs to an electronic beat. Such covers turned out to be interesting and were popular with listeners. Soon the direction received the name “vocal hosting” and became in demand among the public, and Alice, performing under the pseudonym MC Lady Alice, began to be recognized by fans. Large and famous nightclubs in St. Petersburg began to invite her to numerous performances.

In 2012, Alisa learns about a casting for a session vocalist in the Leningrad group. At this time, Yulia Kogan left the St. Petersburg team, and Sergei Shnurov needed a new performer. At the audition, Alisa was able to show her best side, so she was soon accepted into the group. Initially, the girl was only a studio assistant and performed backing vocals, but since the end of 2013 she has been appearing on stage as a full member of the group. It is known that at this time Alice took the pseudonym Vox, under which she continued her solo career.

During concerts, Sergei Shnurov and soloist Alisa Vox staged frank scenes, but behind the scenes the relationship between the partners was much more restrained. Together with Leningrad, Vox recorded numerous songs that later became hits.

Among the famous songs recorded during this period:

• I cry and cry;
• Bag;
• 37th;
• Fire and Ice.

But Alisa’s most famous hit in the Leningrad group is the song “Exhibit,” in which the chorus contains the line “On Louboutins.” It was this composition that held first place in the rankings for several months, and on YouTube this clip was viewed 60 million times. This number of views is a record for Russian videos.

Immediately after the release of this composition, Alisa received all-Russian fame, she was invited to sing in various clubs, and glossy magazines offered any money for nude photo shoots. Filming in the Maxim publication in a swimsuit and topless brought the girl even greater fame.

Shocking performances with “Leningrad”

The Leningrad group is primarily known to the public for its numerous shocking performances on the verge of a foul. If earlier Sergei Shnurov used profanity in his songs, then with the advent of the charming Vox, this musical group began to exploit the theme of sex during their performances. Protesting against the ban on swearing in songs, the artist decided to undress completely at one of the concerts in Moscow while performing the song “Our People Love”, and a video and photo of this naked performance ended up on the Internet.

Discography of the singer:

• Eternal flame.
• The beach is ours.
• Amazing.
• My favorite.

It was precisely such shocking performances that Alisa was remembered for in the Leningrad group. However, after 4 years of joint cooperation, Shnurov and Vox come to the decision to stop their joint work by mutual agreement. The singer noted that she maintained excellent relationships with all the members of this group, but would like to end such a scandalous stage of her life by setting off on a free voyage.

In March 2020, Alisa began her solo career, recording a farewell song with Leningrad called “Prayer.”

Alisa Vox in the group "Leningrad"

In 2012, the Leningrad group had to look for a session vocalist who could replace Yulia Kogan, who had gone on maternity leave. Thanks to her self-confidence and impressive vocal abilities, Alisa passed the audition without any problems. At first, she participated only in studio recordings, but since 2013 she has appeared on stage as a full member of the team. It was at this time that she took the pseudonym Alice Vox.

Alisa Vox was “born” as part of the group “Lenigrad”

It was her participation in the Leningrad group that brought her real popularity. She performed all the female parts in the group's songs and, together with Sergei Shnurov, staged incendiary, often frank and provocative shows on stage.

In March 2020, after 4 years of fruitful collaboration, Alisa Vox left the team by mutual consent, announcing the start of a solo career.

In the spring of 2020, Alisa Vox left Leningrad

Personal life

The biography of Alice Vox is well known to her fans. The girl got married even before gaining all-Russian fame. Alisa Vox's husband Dmitry Burmistrov is a professional photographer and stylist. The girl even officially took her husband’s surname and signed on some posters with the double surname of Vox-Burmistrov. Alisa has repeatedly emphasized that her husband is a wise man who is absolutely not jealous of her for the numerous piquant performances of the Leningrad group.

However, already in 2005, the former lead singer of the Leningrad group often began to appear at concerts and in public without a wedding ring. On Instagram and on the VKontakte page, she deleted joint photos with her husband, and a year later Vox confirmed that she broke up with Burgomistrov. Alice no longer spoke about this topic, so the reasons for the divorce are unknown, and fans are also at a loss as to whether their favorite is dating anyone or whether her heart is now free.

While Alice was part of the Leningrad group, rumors constantly arose about her love affair with Sergei Shnurov. Their frank performances at numerous concerts, where they often played the role of lovers, added fuel to the fire. However, neither Sergei Shnurov nor Alisa Mikhailovna Vox ever confirmed their relationship, so such news remained only rumors.

Both artists emphasized that their hot performance on stage, undressing and explicit poses is a kind of show that has nothing to do with reality. Only in 2020, in one of her interviews, Vox noted that she was often subjected to sexual harassment both from Shnurov and other members of Leningrad and therefore decided to leave the group.

Alice Vox today

Since 2020, Alisa, after the Leningrad group split up, has been writing her own musical compositions . She released an album containing cover versions of recordings by the late musician Kuzma Scriabin. Vox’s first solo video was released in 2020 on the Internet, and the video for the song “Hold” was popular among listeners. At the same time, on Instagram, Alice announces the release date of the second video, called “Nights.” Subsequently, these 2 songs were included in the singer’s debut album “Sama”, for which the tracks “Silence”, “Ships” and “About Love” were also recorded.

Vox herself positions herself as a vocalist working in an unusual electro-pop style. In 2020, Vox began collaborating with the Kremlin administration, releasing the song “Baby,” which had an anti-opposition orientation. After the release of this track, she was criticized by both fans and negatively by Sergei Shnurov, who announced the amount of 2 million rubles received by the singer for this song.

After the release of the song “Baby,” Alice’s ratings began to fall sharply, so the vocalist quickly deleted the unsuccessful clip from the YouTube video hosting site. At the same time, a video appeared for the songs “Disco Queen”, “Eyes” and “Inexplicable”, but Vox was no longer able to achieve the previous popularity and fame. The singer claims on her VKontakte page that her second solo album, entitled “New Alice Vox,” will appear in the coming months.

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Interesting facts and rumors

There is a lot of conflicting information, rumors and speculation around Alice Vox. The singer notes in frank conversations with the media that she could have achieved success earlier and to a greater extent if she had entered into intimate relationships with certain individuals.

In response to such proposals, the artist replied that this could be offered to those who could not sing two notes. Then she simply laughed and went off to achieve her goal herself.