Arkady Ukupnik is a famous composer, author of popular hits, actor and singer. His most beloved songs by the people are: "Petruha", "I will never marry you", "Sim-Sim, open up."
Childhood
Arkady Ukupnik was born in 1953, on February 18, in the city of Kamenets-Podolsk (Ukraine). The real surname is Okupnik, but during the war, father's documents were lost and, during the restoration, when issuing a new passport, a mistake was made in the surname. They didn’t fix it anymore, and it remained.
Parents have worked at the school all their lives. Mom is a literature teacher, dad taught geometry and algebra. By the way, Arkady's sister Margarita also works as a teacher. It is interesting that Arkady studied at a different school, not the one where his parents taught.
As a child, my mother sent her children to a music school, and Arkady graduated with honors in violin. And later, in his youth, he began to study the ability to play the bass guitar.
Youth
After school, in 1971, at the request of his parents, Arkady entered the Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School, and successfully graduated with a degree in automation and mechanization of welding production.
But the desire for creativity takes up and Arkady hones his skills, playing at weddings.
Career
From 1972 to 1978 he played in the ensemble under the direction of Yuri Antonov, then in the Leonid Utesov Orchestra and the Jazz-Attack group.
Working in a circle of famous people in the musical life of the capital motivates Arkady to open a recording studio and very soon many Soviet performers become his clients. The most important thing is that Arkady liked exactly the musical arrangement, and writing songs was not even in his thoughts.
In 1982, Arkady Ukupnik began his career as a singer and became an irreplaceable participant in the television program Christmas Meetings.
The first fame came to him after the song "Rowan beads" performed by Irina Ponarovskaya. The song was played on central television and this motivated Arkady to make new hits and he really succeeded. Each song became a hit.
Since then, he began to work with pop singers, who at that time were at the very top of the charts. The songs he wrote for Alla Pugacheva, Kristina Orbakaite, Tatyana Ovsienko, Vladimir Presnyakov Jr., Larisa Dolina, Natalia Vetlitskaya brought even more fame to their performers.
Arkady Ukupnik's talent is multifaceted, he can create a song both in a humorous style and lyrical. Everyone remembers his most incendiary hits: "I will never marry you", "Sim-Sim, open up", "Petruha", "The star is flying", "Margarita".
In the 90s, Arkady released album after album, not a single national concert takes place without him, quotes from his songs go to the people. In total, for all the time of his work, Ukupnik has released 9 music albums.
At this time, more and more clips appear and songs written by the composer Ukupnik now appear in video format.
He worked with: Vlad Stashevsky, Mikhail Shufutinsky, Vadim Kazachenko, Lyubov Uspenskaya and other stars.
Few people know that Arkady Ukupnik was the producer of the favorite group of young people "Kar-Men". This project has been at the top of the charts for a long time.
In the early 2000s, Arkady took part in the Russian version of the musical "Chicago", in the role of Amos Hart. Anastasia Stotskaya played the main role. In Russia, the work was presented by Alla Pugacheva and Philip Kirkorov, who produced it.
But Ukupnik did not dwell on music and songs, he successfully starred in several films: "The Arrow of Love", "The Lover from Moscow", "Baby", "The Newest Adventures of Buratino", "Daughters-Mothers".
In total, the singer's and actor's filmography includes about 40 films.
Now the composer is busy in his own recording studio "Olympic". He is also the organizer of the annual World Jazz Festival in Riga.
Personal life
The singer has two marriages that ended in divorce. In each union, one child was born, a son Gregory and a daughter Yunna. The children took the names of their mothers.
Now Arkady is happy with Natalia, his third wife. After 14 years of family life, the couple had a daughter, Sonechka, in 2011. At that time, Arkady was 58 years old, but this event made him even happier.
Now the singer lives with his family outside the city, 5 km away. from the capital and continues to actively engage in creative activities.
