Ilya Volkov
Fans of Junior Eurovision Song Contest will already have seen Ilya Volkov. In 2012 in Amsterdam he appeared on stage together with Belarussian representative Egor Zheshko… but as a dancer. Shortly before the start of National Selection 2012, the BTRC production team received a lot of emails and letters with these words: "Please do not change this boy; he's dancing with passion!"His dream came true. In Kiev Ilya dances and sings. His artistic talents were discovered very early - at the age of three. Ilya’s mother is a professional musician and noticed that her son had perfect pitch. When Ilya was six, his parents decided to send him to music school and dance studio and today it is difficult to say it which area he is more successful.
Ilya the Dancer has won many dance competitions. One of the recent victories was 1st place in the Belarussian Ballroom Dancing Championship. Ilya the Vocalist performed successfully in other competitions including ‘New Movement – 2011,’ ‘European Cup – 2012,’ ‘Shine Talent -2012,’ and ‘New Wave 2013.’
Today the 11-year-old citizen of Minsk is a pupil of Republican Art College class of choral singing and a member of a ‘Sigma’ dance club and vocal studio ‘Golden Voices.’ Besides music and dancing, Ilya loves mathematics; a talent he inherited from his father. When he has time, he also likes to read books about adventures and space.
Interestingly, Ilya’s vocal coach is Olga Vronskaya who in 2007 helped Lesha Zhigalkovich to victory in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.
Together with the singer, five girl dancers from vocal and choreographic studio ‘Maxi Briz’ (director Anna Sakovitch) appear on stage in Kyiv. By the way, it should be noted this year Belarussian kids are blend of nationalities: Ilya - Belarusian, Katerina Artemyeva - Russian, Leila Tabatadze - Georgian, Milena Volskaya - Polish, and Dina Heydarova - Azerbaijani and Jolanta Verbitskaya - Latvian.
