Manuel Ortega, (born Manuel Hanke, Steyregg, 8 April 1980) is an Austrian singer of Spanish parents, born in Steyregg. When he was ten years old, he began his career as a singer. He sang with the Florianer Sängerknaben in one of the oldest choirs from Austria.
His love for pop music led to him joining a band called BAFF when he was a teenager. Starting from an early age, meant Ortega has been able to make over 200 stages performances as of 2003. When he was 17, he took part in a search for talent and was chosen out of 1300 entrants to be the singer of a new group. Whilst successful, the group was not enough for Ortega and in 2001 he began a solo career.
The song El Amor, La Vida was the Austrian summer hit of 2001. In 2002 he represented Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song Say A Word. Because of his Spanish temperament Manuel Ortega soon became known as the Austrian Ricky Martin, although his talents include song writing as wel
Manuel participated in the 3rd Season of the Ukrainian Dancing With the Stars (so-called International League of Champions) where he danced with the Ukrainian ballroom dancer, Eurovision Dance Contest's silver medallist Yulia Okropiridze.
Famous quotes containing the words manuel and/or ortega:
“And Manuel embraced his mother and they laughed together: Délira’s laugh sounded surprisingly young; that was because she hadn’t really had the chance to make it heard; life was just not happy enough for that. No, she never had time to use it; she had kept it fresh as can be, like a birdsong in an old nest.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)
“Being an artist means ceasing to take seriously that very serious person we are when we are not an artist.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)