Irma Sokhadze

Born on 28 November 1958, Irma Sokhadze was the daughter of a well-to-do family. Her father, a scientist, and her mother, a linguist, introduced her to music when she was just two years old, when she sang at home with her parents and brother. When she was five, she made her first appearance on television, singing one song in Italian and another in Georgian. Two years later, she gained wide popularity singing the "Orange Song" in Moscow, with lyrics specially written for her by Grigory Gorin and Arkady Arkanov to music composed by Konstantin Pevzner.[1] She became a soloist with the Georgian State Orchestra and went on tour to several countries. In 1966, she performed at the Olympia in Paris.[3][4]

As a gifted child, she attended Tbilisi's Central School of Music, matriculating with honours in 1974. She also studied piano and musicology at the Conservatory, graduating with honours in 1979.[1]

From 1980 to 2004, Sokhadze made frequent broadcasts on Georgian television, where she also worked as an editor and author. In particular, in the 1990s she presented a series of marathons as a means of providing support to children who had suffered in the Abkhazia War.[4] She founded the Children's Music Theatre Studio in 1984, presenting musicals she had written herself. In 1988, she played the leading role in Nezhnost' (Tenderness) in Moscow's Operetta Theatre.[3] In 2014, she appeared in her own special concert in Tbilisi, celebrating a career spanning 50 years.[4]