Diana Ankudinova

Diana Dmitrievna Ankudinova (Диана Дмитриевна Анкудинова, born May 31, 2003) is a Russian singer.

Much of her initial fame resulted from her winning two consecutive seasons of You Are Super!, a talent competition show on the Russian NTV network for children who have spent some significant part of their childhood without parental care.

Diana Ankudinova's performances were posted on the NTV web site and the NTV YouTube channel, where they soon gained hundreds of millions of views around the world.

Diana Ankudinova sings mostly in Russian, English and French.

She has also sung in other languages including Spanish, German and Arabic.

Diana Ankudinova was born on May 31, 2003, in the far eastern Primorsky Territory of Russia in an area north of the city of Vladivostok.

Diana's biological mother physically abused her.

At the age of three, Diana was left at a bus stop in the winter with a broken collarbone.

Diana's biological aunt rescued Diana from the street, but was unable to care for the traumatized child.

Diana's aunt made a statement about the abuse of Diana to the local prosecutor, and it was agreed that the young Diana should be turned over to the care of an orphanage in Primorsky Territory which provided for the care of abandoned young children in the general area.

Children from the orphanage were periodically sent to a sanatorium in Arsenyev to help them regain and maintain their physical and mental health.

A massage therapist, Irina Anatolyevna Ponik, who worked at the sanatorium developed a special affection for Diana.

The daughter of Irina Ponik, who sometimes visited her mother at work, was the one who first began to insist that her mother adopt Diana.

In 2008, Irina Ponik filed the necessary paperwork to assume formal legal guardianship of Diana Ankudinova with the territorial department of guardianship and trusteeship.

The new family lived in Arsenyev.

In 2012, the family moved far away to the city of Tolyatti in the Samara Oblast of southwestern Russia.

The move to Tolyatti was mostly due to Diana's fears that her biological mother might try to find and abuse Diana or even attempt to regain custody of Diana.

These fears were so intense that they had been significantly affecting young Diana's mental health.

Irina Ponik, Diana's adoptive mother, had previously lived in Tolyatti.

Tolyatti was also much closer to Moscow, which was the city where Diana and her family believed she would find the greatest opportunities for her future musical education and career.

At the age of four-and-a-half years, Diana's speech was extremely poor, with stuttering and other problems.

Speech pathologists recommended that she be given singing lessons to improve her general speech and vocal skills.

She quickly discovered that she loved singing.

The head of the brass band of the city of Arsenyev, Alexander Varnamov, was the first to say that Diana had an extraordinary and very beautiful voice, and also a perfect ear for music.

He predicted a great future for Diana as a singer.

Diana's instructors also noticed her unusual vocal abilities in her singing.

Alexander Varnamov made an agreement with Elena Kazantseva, head of the vocal pop ensemble Zhemchuzhinki (Pearls), so that she would accept Diana into the collective.

She also sang in a duet "Malinki" under the direction of Elena Kazantseva.

Diana entered the Elegance vocal and choreographic school under the guidance of Anna Pekhtereva in the city of Arsenyev.

Diana began entering many vocal contests while still very young.

She also began singing in public events at every opportunity that was presented to her.

After the move to Tolyatti, Diana continued singing in public at every opportunity and continued to enter many vocal competitions.

She began studying vocals at the Melody circle of the Tolyatti House of Culture where she took vocal lessons from Svetlana Vovk.

Diana played one of the main roles in the musical Teremok with the Russian orchestra of the Tolyatti Philharmonic in November 2014.

In the theater and music studio at DKIT under the direction of Dmitry Marfin, she played in the musical Visiting the Fairy Tale, and also played the role of Becky Thatcher in the Jazz musical Tom Sawyer and His Friends, played the role of Muryonka the cat in the opera "Silver Hoof" in Tolyatti Philharmonic, in the musical Vovka in the Jazz Kingdom, in the musical New Adventures of Electronics.

Here are a few of the prizes and diplomas of Diana Ankudinova:

In late 2016, Diana Ankudinova passed the non-televised preliminary auditions for season 4 of the Russian The Voice Kids.

She appeared on the blind auditions of the show that were televised on February 17, 2017.

Diana sang "Jodel Time" which was originally performed by the Swiss band Oesch's die Dritten.

None of the judges selected Diana, so she was eliminated from the competition.