Svoy

From Wikipedia

Svoy is a multi-Independent Music Award winning recording and performing music artist in the genre of pop/electronica. He has three self-produced albums released via Mack Avenue Records/Sony Music Entertainment, P-Vine Records/Blues Interactions and Thistime Records, respectively. In 2009, his single "Beautiful Thing" reached #69 on the Billboard Japan Hot TOP 100 Airplay and #82 on Billboard Japan Hot 100 Singles chart. Besides remaining in top 40 and 100 airplay charts of numerous major Japenese radio networks for over 8 weeks, the song peaked at #3 on Alpha Station FM Kyoto 89.4's TOP 40 Overseas Chart. Also in 2009, Svoy's album Automatons reached #100 on the Billboard Japan Top Independent Albums and Singles chart. In 2011, Automatons and its title track were nominated for Best Dance/Electronica Album and Best Dance/Electronica Song at The 10th Independent Music Awards, subsequently winning in the latter category, as well as winning IMA's Vox Populi in both categories. 10th Independent Music Awards judging panel included Seal, Fall Out Boy, Portishead, McCoy Tyner, Counting Crows, Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne, Suzanne Vega, Jesse Harris, Tom Waits, Aimee Mann, Jonatha Brooke among other notable artists and music industry professionals. In 2004, Svoy won the BMI John Lennon Award for songwriters and received the award personally from Yoko Ono. In 2002, he won BMI Pete Carpenter Fellowship for film composers, that led to studying with Mike Post and Atli Orvarsson for one month at Post's studio in Los Angeles. Svoy is a writer/artist for Universal Music Group and a Yamaha-endorsed keyboardist/producer. He is presently residing in New York City.

Biography

Svoy is a New York-based one-man band: music, lyrics, performance, production, recording, mixing, mastering, art direction, graphic design, video production.

Born in the Russian Far East, Svoy took classical and jazz piano lessons as a child. As a teenager, he moved to Moscow to experience life and music in a big city, and ended up studying with some of the top jazz professionals in the country (including pianist Igor Bril and, the late, great composer Yury Saulsky). While in Western Russia, Svoy also won the 3rd Grand Prize at Jazz Improvizacija Solo Piano Competition in Vilnius, Lithuania, received an Exclusive Prize from the Russian National Academy of Composers, earned a Professional Diploma with Honors in Jazz/Classical Piano Performance/Sound Engineering from the GMUEDI Moscow State Music College, and a Degree in Jazz/Classical Piano Performance/Music Education from the elite Russian Academy of Music named after Gnessins. Both schools were attended on a full scholarship provided by the state.

In 2000, Svoy got a full scholarship to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he earned a Degree in Professional Music. While in Boston, Svoy explored songwriting and production. In 2002, he won the BMI Pete Carpenter Fellowship and spent six weeks studying with Grammy and Emmy-winning TV composer Mike Post (writer of such TV themes as Law & Order, NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, among others) and Atli Örvarsson (composer for The Fourth Kind, Thick as Thieves, Babylon A.D., Vantage Point, Season of the Witch) at Post's studio in Los Angeles. In 2004, Svoy won BMI John Lennon Award for songwriters (3rd Prize) in New York. The judges included legendary Grammy-winning record producer Russ Titelman (George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, James Taylor) and hit Broadway composer Frank Wildhorn. Thousands of applicants participated in the competition that year. In June 2004 Svoy received the award from BMI and Yoko Ono, personally.

While still at Berklee, Svoy began working on a number of songs that he planned to eventually have as a demo. Influenced by many different styles of music, including electronica, rhythm & blues, rock, he experimented using a portion of each, when writing and producing at his home studio. Once several tracks were finished, Svoy began playing the new material to friends and music industry professionals (including Sony/ATV Vice President of A&R Eric Beall, Billboard Electronica/Dance Chart-topping artist/producers Markus Moser of the band IIO and Chris Brann, aka Wamdue, of The Ananda Project, among others) and eventually realized that the tracks were more than just demo-quality. He completed his debut self-produced album, Eclectric, created an artist page on MySpace (which was a rapidly growing network at the time) and, after posting the newly-recorded music, was able to build an 8,000-plus following and gather over 30,000 plays, which caught the attention of renowned multi Grammy-nominated artist/entrepreneur/record label executive Dave Koz, and led to getting signed to a record deal with Koz's Beverly Hills-based label Rendezvous Entertainment (Universal Music Group Distribution), a publishing deal with Universal Music Group and an endorsement deal with Yamaha. Rendezvous released Svoy's debut record in the United States on May 1st, 2007, to wide critical applause.

In summer 2008, Svoy recorded 4 new versions of songs from Eclectric, and a cover of Bjork's 'Unison'. In February 2009, 5-track Consequence EP 1.0 was released on Svoy's Sixteenth Republic Records (an updated version, Consequence EP 1.1 followed in December of the same year). In July 2009, a limited deluxe 2-disk Japan edition of Eclectric and Consequence EP 1.0 were released on Tokyo-based Thistime Records.

Svoy's second self-produced album, Automatons, was released on August 19, 2009, on Tokyo-based historic P-Vine Records, featuring collaborations with multi platinum-selling songwriter/artist Adam Levy and MTV Award-winning multi hit songwriter/artist Ilya Lagutenko of Russia's superstar band Mumiy Troll. In September 2009, album's single "Beautiful Thing" reached #69 on the Billboard Japan Top 100 Airplay and #82 on Billboard Japan Top 100 Singles chart. Album also reached #100 on the Billboard Japan Independent Albums and Singles chart. Automatons was released Internationally on November 2, 2010.

In Fall 2009, Svoy was granted a Permanent Resident Alien of Extraordinary Ability status in the United States.

In February, 2011, the album and its title track received two nominations at The 10th Independent Music Awards in Best Dance/Electronica Album and Best Dance/Electronica Song categories, winning in the latter category in March, 2011. 10th Independent Music Awards judging panel included Seal, Fall Out Boy, Portishead, McCoy Tyner, Counting Crows, Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne, Suzanne Vega, Jesse Harris, Tom Waits, Aimee Mann, Jonatha Brooke among other notable artists and music industry professionals.

Svoy's 3rd self-produced album, Grow Up, was released on Tokyo-based Thistime Records on June 22, 2011. In July 2011, it was announced that the album's opening track "Never Grow Up" was picked up for power rotation by Japan's FM Ishikawa 80.5MHz. In the same month, it was announced that another track from the album, "Right Here, Right Now", was chosen for Hyper Power Play by Japan's FM Kento 76.5MHz.

On July 19, 2011, it was announced that Automatons won 10th Independent Music Awards' Vox Populi (fan-based portion of the annual awards) in both Best Dance/Electronica Song and Best Dance/Electronica Album categories.

In November, 2011, Russian version of "Never Grow Up" entitled "Navsegda" was added to rotation by Moscow's major radio network 94.8MHz RU.FM and as of August, 2012, remained in steady rotation.

On August 7, 2012, Svoy announced the release of Solved EP, a 6-track album consisting of entirely new material. Solved was released internationally on August 21, 2012, on Svoy's Sixteenth Republic Records.

© 2012 Sixteenth Republic Productions