CONCERT: Katie Melua Sings for Free in Tbilisi and Batumi - Video: Spider's Web Tbilisi 09' (geotimes.ge)

By Rusudan Gvazava. (www.geotimes.ge)

About 1,000 fans will be given a treat by Katie Melua in Tbilisi as the most famous “British singer of Georgian origin” holds her first solo concert at Tbilisi’s Z. Paliashvili Opera and Ballet State Theatre.

Katie Melua will be performing for a Georgian audience at a charity concert on 14 July. The concert is called "I Believe in Love - Together We Can Save the Future!” Melua will not however be staying in the Georgian capital. She will dash to Batumi the same evening and perform another charity concert in Batumi Boulevard the next day. Iavnana, a charity founded by renowned Georgian opera singer Paata Buchuladze, Melua herself, Eastern Promotions, a local promotional company and the Ministry of Culture, Monument Protection and Sport are organising the concerts.

Almost all the tickets for the Tbilisi performance were sold out in a few days when news of it broke. A girl in the box office told GT that only 15 tickets costing 100 GEL and 165 GEL were left by about 7pm on July 3. Melua’s fans could buy them for 35 GEL, 45 GEL, 100 GEL and 165 GEL earlier. The money from ticket sales will go to Iavnana which will buy two apartments for two homeless families.

“I am preparing very particularly for this concert and am a bit anxious. I do not usually worry before concerts but this one is very important for me and it is special as all my family members will attend,” Melua commented in Georgian with a slight British accent in an interview given to TV channel Rustavi2.

Katie Melua did not make any eccentric or unusual demands when discussing the arrangements for her Georgian concerts, Kakha Kandelaki , Eastern Promotion’s Marketing and PR Manager, said. She only asked for high standard technical equipment.
Katie Melua was born in 1984 in Kutaisi inGeorgia and spent her first years with her grandparents in Tbilisi. In 1993, in the aftermath of the Georgian Civil War, the family moved to Belfast, Northern Ireland. During her time in Northern Ireland, Melua attended St. Catherine's Primary School.

Because of her upbringing in politically unstable Georgia and troubled Belfast, Melua initially planned to become either a historian or a politician. This changed in 2000, at the age of 15, when Melua took part in a talent competition on British television channel ITV called "Stars Up Their Noses" (a spoof of Stars in Their Eyes) as part of the children's programme Mad for It! Melua won the contest by singing Badfinger's "Without You". The prize was £350 worth of MFI vouchers.

At sixteen she joined the BRIT School for the Performing Arts in London, undertaking a BTEC with an A-level in music. She began to write songs at the school. Melua first met her future manager, producer Mike Batt, when studying at the school. She has won many prizes and awards. In 2007 she won the ECHO award for Best International Female Artist and the Goldene Kamera Pop International Soloist award, in 2006 the BRIT Awards Best British Female Solo Artist and the 2005 ECHO award Best International Newcomer, being also nominated for the 2006 BRIT Awards Best Pop Act and 2005 ECHO Award Best International Female Artist. Melua was the best-selling UK female artist of 2004 and 2005.

In 2006 Melua had a tulip named after her. According to VH1, Call Off The Search is the 87th best-selling British album in history.





Katie Melua - Kviteli Potlebi. Tbilisi, 14.07.09