Biography *** Personal background Meri Voskanian was born on the 9th of December 1987 in Yerevan, Armenia. In 1995 she moved with her family to Germany where they settled near Schweinfurt. Meri has her musical talent unquestionably from her father who himself is a passionate musician and producer. *** The beginnings At the early age of five years Meri sang in the children's band of radio Yerevan. Shortly after having moved to Germany Meri started to take piano lessons. As a teenager she sang in the school choir, played keyboards and had many concerts with a Jazz /-Soulband. Because Meri leaves nothing to a chance, it was also important to her to take dance lessons for her live appearances. Meri discovered early, that music is more to her than just a hobby. This is certainly also due to the influence of her father and together they started to compose and record their own songs at their home studio. A few years ago Meri joined the Celtis Big-Band of her school and with this band she already toured to Italy and China. *** Music style and influences Meris music style is German RnB / Soul and her musical models are Whitney Houston, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Lopez and Beyoncé. The young singer writes and composes her own songs. She works the melodies out on the piano or together with her father. In the course of the years Meri has already worked with famous music producers, among others with Irmgard Klarmann and Felix Weber (ASCAP winner, Chaka Khan, Janet Jackson, Joe Cocker) and with composer Candy de Rouge (Jennifer Rush, Celine Dion, Falco, Bonnie Bianco). Meri also participated with great success in different singing contests and in 2005 she took part in the casting show "pop idol" in Germany. *** In recent years In August, 2006 Meri signed a recording contract with the label "Deutsche TON". Thus the contact with singer and Vocal coach Robin D. also came about. In November, 2006 his single "Königin" was released on which Meri was exclusively featured. In February, 2007 Meri travelled again back to her country of birth and took successfully part in the national election of Armenia for the Eurovision song contest in 2007 as she reached the second place from nineteen candidates. Meri was on tour together with her band in April 2007. The band members are highly experienced musicians and they are all well known in the music biz. The Tour saw Meri & Band playing a total of 10 gigs throughout Germany. The first single, produced by Jan van der Toorn (Mousse T./Peppermint Jam) hit the market on May 25, 2007. Meri performed live at the official opening of popkomm in Frankfurt and also at the music expo my music in Friedrichshafen, Germany in autumn 2007. *** Most recently Meris Debutalbum was released on November 16, 2007. Stay tuned for news! *** check out her site on myspace *** www.myspace.com/merivoskanian Instrumentation Meri Voskanian - VOCALS, KEYS Timucin Dincel- DRUMS Florian Opahle- GUITARS Mario Schönhofer - BASSES, KEYS Discography Single release May 25, 2007 Album release Nov 16, 2007 Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.