Valentina Ponomaryova (singer)

Valentina's father is Romani violinist Dmitry Ponomaryov, while her mother is Russian pianist Irina Lukashova.

Valentina grew up surrounded by both classical European and Romani popular music.

Valentina took external degrees and was invited to a theater to act the part of a Gypsy singer in a dramatic play "The Living Corpse" (by Lev Tolstoy).

There she was noticed and invited to join Anatoliy Krol's jazz-band, which was quite famous in the USSR.

[6] In the early 1990s she recorded as part of a trio with Ken Hyder and Tim Hodgkinson.