Marina V

Welcome to Marina's soundclick page! Marina V is a Russian-born pop/rock singer, songwriter & pianist currently living in Los Angeles. Influenced by the Beatles and Tchaikovsky, Marina's music style has been described as an unusual mix of Tori Amos, Jewel & Paul McCartney, but "with her unique phrasing, breathless, smoky-sweet and compelling vocals, she's got a sound all her own" (Artists Studio Magazine). for the latest news.

Marina Gennadievna Verenikina was born in Moscow, Russia. Her mother Irina and father Gennady were amateur ball room dancers. That's how they met. They remember Marina singing at a very young age. Marina's mother thought she needed to get music education, so when she turned six years old Irina physically dragged Marina - sobbing and screaming - to the local school of music. Her grandmother had a piano at home, and she taught Marina to play silly little songs. When her mom told the teacher who was auditioning her "Marina has a beautiful voice", the music teacher replied: "Well, all mothers think so. We'll see." They saw, and Marina was accepted into the school of music "Podsnezhnik" and went there for eight years, 4 to 5 days a week after regular school. At 14, she received a musical diploma with all excellent grades. Going to both schools didn't leave her a lot of free time. Nevertheless, at different times she was involved in many things including figure skating, swimming, vocal lessons, karate, skateboarding, biking, skiing, reading, taking extracurricular English and computer classes, and many other things. She also started to learn to play guitar on her own, just sitting by the piano and figuring out the chords. When she was 15, she applied for an academic scholarship to study in a high school in the United States of America. The competition for this program, which was sponsored by the American government, was tough. The program officials picked only one thousand students out of more than one hundred thousand applicants from all over the former Soviet Union. That year in the USA changed her life. Without this scholarship, Marina (most likely) would not have been able to study in the USA. Her family was poor, although her father was a nuclear physicist working for the government, and her mother had a Ph.D. in psychology. After a year in Springfield, Illinois, she returned to Moscow, but she still had to finish high school because the year in the States didn't count academically. During the next year, she studied at home so that she could take exams in order to graduate, as well as working full time for a British company (at age 16!) in their marketing department. Besides, her parents were going through a divorce, and Marina had to support her father and her younger brother Alex at home with cooking, cleaning, and buying groceries. Marina realized that in the USA she would have a much greater opportunity for personal development in nearly any career she chose. At 17, she saved enough money for a one-way airplane ticket back to America, leaving her home, family and her country behind. At a time when the thought of leaving for college the next year is stressful to most American kids, Marina was starting over, all alone, in a new country, with a new language, with no family available to lean on if she needed it. Needless to say, this transition was a difficult time, but one she bravely faced with courage and determination. When Marina came to the US at 17, old friends of her mother helped Marina obtain a US student visa to go to college with their financial support. At first she stayed with the same family that had hosted her earlier. Unfortunately, it didn't work out and soon she was totally on her own. Because of her visa status, she wasn't initially allowed to work. She did a lot of odd jobs cleaning houses, cooking hamburgers at a flea market, translating and even a failed attempt at modeling (though if you see her pictures on our website, you'll wonder how she could have failed). Marina joined the local women's ice hockey team in Springfield, IL, and played with them for almost two years. Even though Marina is fluent in Russian and Spanish, she only spoke a small amount of British English when she came to the US, and couldn't understand the common American slang at all. She spent a great deal of time with a dictionary looking words up to understand. "It was a matter of survival. During my school year as an exchange student, I went to a very rough public school. Very different from my small school in Moscow." Marina says. During these tough times, she didn't have her family to fall back on. "Since I was 17, I have seen my family only once, 2 years ago when I returned to Moscow. I saw my mother, who now lives in Australia last December. My father and grandfather aren't allowed to come to the US to visit because he is a nuclear physicist working in Russia's National Defense and my Grandpa is an Engineer for the MIG company. They aren't allowed to leave the country out of protection of Russian National secrets." Since early childhood, Marina has written songs here and there, but never thought of it seriously until she met Nick Baker, who is a musician as well (they accidentally met in a Jacuzzi in a fitness club). After hearing her songs, Nick encouraged Marina to keep writing and try to approach her music as more than a hobby. After a year of co-writing, they decided to record her first CD. Marina had played a talent show at her college and won her division - best vocal / instrument (she also won a talent show the following fall - she played one of her new songs, FATHER). The students, faculty, and administration of Illinois College provided financial support by pre-ordering her CD. Nick and Marina recorded "Let Me Dream" in two days. Marina started out by playing local (Illinois) venues, but the gig territory quickly expanded. After playing solo for a while, Marina formed a band. They have opened for a few national acts, including Beth Hart of Atlantic/Lava/143 Records. They even met Willie Nelson! Next year Marina released her second album, LIFT. Unlike her first CD, LIFT is a versatile mixture of upbeat pop/rock songs and Marina's signature piano ballads. She does miss Moscow. "It's my home. I miss everything about Moscow. The sense of great history in the air - in every corner. I even miss the rude people on the streets." But, she says, even with the hardships, language barriers and initial loneliness, she hasn't regretted her decision for a moment. She earned a degree in business, international politics and Spanish. "The best thing about being in the US is that it has 'loosened me up' and brought out the best and strongest traits in my personality. I was at that age when you're very impressionable, and the American way of 'just being yourself' influenced who I am now. You see, Russians normally are very uptight - both psychologically and socially. While Russian/Soviet mentality was pulling me down, the American way has allowed me to bloom." And bloom she has.

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