Michael Cretu

Michael Cretu
Birth name	Mihai Crețu
Also known as	Michael Crétu Curly MC Curly M.C.
Born	18 May 1957 (1957-05-18) (age 54) Bucharest, Romania
Origin	Romania
Genres	New Age, electronic, trance
Occupations	Musician, producer
Instruments	MIDI keyboard, guitar
Years active	1978–present
Labels	Virgin
Associated acts	Moti Special, Enigma, Sandra, Trance Atlantic Air Waves Project
Website	www.enigmaspace.com
Notable instruments
Alchemist Merlin

Michael Cretu (Romanian: Mihai Creţu pronounced [miˈhaj ˈkret͡su]; born 18 May, 1957, Bucharest, Romania) is a Romanian musician. He is known also as Curly, MC or Curly M.C. because of his fair curled hair (creț means "curly" in Romanian). His peak musical activity was with the Enigma project, which was mainly based in Germany.

He worked with many musicians along his career. The first one to mention is his future wife Sandra Lauer (Sandra Cretu from marriage in 1988), musician Peter Cornelius, guitar player Manfred Thiers and Jens Gad, Frank Peterson, David Fairstein, D.J André Tanneberger (from the A.T.B. Music Poject), Peter Ries, Bernt Moehrle, singer Ruth-Ann Boyle & Andru Donalds, latter one produced the single Mishale in 1995.

In 2002, Crocodile-Music, Cretu's management company stated 100 million Cretu-produced records had been sold worldwide.[1] By the year 2008, Michael Cretu's Enigma project had sold over 50 million studio albums according to his official site.^{[citation needed]}

He owns A.R.T. Studios, a recording studio facility located near the resort on the Balearic Islands, where he lived with his wife and their two teenagers, Nikita and Sebastian born in 1995. He and Sandra divorced in 2007. Cretu has been reported as living in Germany since that time.

Studies

Cretu studied music at the Dinu Lipatti (Musical High School) former #2 Highschool in Bucharest (in 1965) and later on he continued his studies at the Frankfurt Conservatory in West Germany from 1975 to 1978. He graduates and has a title in music.

Cretu met his future wife, Sandra Lauer, when he was playing keyboards on the band Arabesque’s live touring show. In collaboration with several Hubert Kah band members, he co-wrote and produced several successful albums and singles for her, beginning with the song "Maria Magdalena" which topped the charts in 21 countries. The band was simply called Sandra, although Sandra's full name is now often used for filing and identification purposes. Cretu married her on 7 January 1988. They have twins named Nikita and Sebastian, who were born in July 1995. Michael and Sandra divorced in November 2007, citing "personal and professional differences".^[1]

Background

Cretu was born to a Romanian father and an Austrian mother in Romania, Iasi. His uncle is Ion Voicu, a Romanian violin-player and former director of the Bucharest Philarmonic told Michael's parents that he had talent in music and as such, he studied classical music at Liceul Nr. 2 in Bucharest in 1965 and in Paris, France, in 1968.^[2] He later attended the Academy of Music in Frankfurt, Germany, from 1975 to 1978, attaining a degree in music. Cretu was taken on as a keyboard player and producer for Frank Farian.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1980s, Cretu took over production for the pop quartet Hubert Kah and started writing songs with the band leader Hubert Kemmler, achieving a number of hits. Among his other work, Cretu was also one of the producers of Mike Oldfield's 1987 album Islands and the producer of Peter Schilling's 1989 The Different Story (World of Lust and Crime) album.

In 1992 Cretu worked with Peter Cornelius on the Return to Innocence (album), to provide the guitar riffs.

For the third album, Cretu teamed up with Jens Gad to work together on Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi! and launched in 1999 a new trance project Trance Atlantic Airwaves and the album The Energy of Sound.

Another band of Cretu's was called Moti Special ("Cold Days, Hot Nights"), which Cretu produced and performed with in the mid-1980s.

He owns the A.R.T. Studios in Ibiza before moving to a new mansion in the Ibiza hills. His new house, near Sant Antoni de Portmany on the western coast of Ibiza, is a Moroccan-style mansion that was designed and built by Bernd Steber and Gunter Wagner in more than nine years. It also features a brand new, state-of-the-art recording studio. The Spanish High Court deemed the house to have been built illegally and in infringement of Spanish environmental regulations which led to the €18 million villa being razed in May 2009.^[3]

Cretu as a solo artist

Cretu's first solo release was the single Wild River in 1978. His first solo album was released in 1979 and was a doubled titled album: Ausgewählte Goldstücke as German-language release, and Moon, Light & Flowers as English-language release.

Cretu's second solo album, titled Legionaire, was released in 1983, also in English and German versions. This album had German-language lyrics and was sung by Michael. It was co-produced and supervised by Harald Steinhauer and mastered by Armand Volker.

Cretu's third solo album was titled Die Chinesische Mauer and was released in 1985. The literal English translation is The Chinese Wall. Like his previous album, this had German-language lyrics, was sung by Michael, co-produced by Armand Volker and Michael Cretu. This album was also released as a separate album with English-language lyrics and a different track listing under the name The Invisible Man. Several of the tracks on The Invisible Man were edited slightly and, therefore, was different length than the German-language versions on Die Chinesische Mauer. This featured the song "Samurai," which became a minor hit.

Among his early successful works it is worth mentioning Mike Oldfield's 1987 album entitled Islands.

The Enigma project

Main article: Enigma (musical project)

After Cretu's marriage to Sandra in 1988, he had an idea for a musical new-age dance project under the name of Enigma, presented by Fairstein. Cretu worked with Frank Peterson and David Fairstein to create their ground-breaking first single "Sadeness (Part I)", which became a surprise hit. MCMXC a.D., the album, which was released in 1990, was hugely successful.

MCMXC a.D. stayed on the charts for 282 weeks on European charts and dropped off two years after the second album, The Cross of Changes, was released in 1993. Prior to this, Frank Peterson had some disagreements with Cretu and he left the project in 1991. Cretu changed Enigma's direction from Gregorian chants to tribal chants for its second album, and this led to the single "Return to Innocence" with Peter Cornelius, which became a worldwide hit.

Cretu was approached by Paramount Pictures to write the soundtrack of the movie Sliver and he came up with another 1993 single "Carly's Song" after the main female character's name.

In 1996 Enigma's third album Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi! was released. Stylistically, it sounded like a combination of the first and second albums, but it failed to achieve the same level of success.

In 1999 Cretu steered the project in another direction by using samples of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana for the fourth album The Screen Behind the Mirror, released in 2000. Andru Donalds and Ruth-Ann Boyle first appeared as features on this Enigma project. Although Jens Gad had been working with Cretu on the earlier albums, this was the first time that he had been given actual credits.

Deciding that the first chapter for Enigma was closed under the Virgin Records label, Cretu releases a set of compilations: Love Sensuality Devotion: The Greatest Hits and Love Sensuality Devotion: The Remix Collection that include credits to ATB.

He had continued the Enigma project, and in 2003 he came up with Voyageur album. Familiar sounds of the Shakuhachi flute, tribal, or Gregorian chants were replaced with more commercially-friendly tunes and beat. In March 2006, a new single called "Hello and Welcome" was released in anticipation of another album.

A posteriori is the sixth Enigma studio album. It was released on 22 September 2006.

Seven Lives Many Faces became the seventh Enigma studio album. It was released on 19 September 2008 and has not received yet a critical or positive review from the musical scene or the printed media in Europe. This is because of the musical genre of Enigma that developed as many DJs tried to go beyond Enigma's influences.

Discography

Solo albums

• 1979 – Moon, Light & Flowers
• 1983 – Legionäre
• 1985 – The Chinese Wall
• 1985 – Die Chinesische Mauer (English endition, The Invisible Man) [#24 Switzerland, #16 Sweden]

Solo singles

• 1978 - "Shadows Over My Head"
• 1978 - "Wild River"
• 1979 - "Moonlight Flower"
• 1983 - "Total Normal"
• 1983 - "Zeitlose Reise"
• 1983 - "Der Planet Der Verlorenen Zeit"
• 1983 - "Today, Today"
• 1984 - "Schwarzer Engel"
• 1985 - "Carte Blanche"
• 1985 - "Die Chinesische Mauer"
• 1985 - "Samurai" (German Version)"
• 1985 - "Samurai (Did You Ever Dream)" (English Version) [#3 Austria, #2 Switzerland, #4 Sweden, #1 Greece, #4 Italy, #12 Germany]
• 1985 - "Silver Water"
• 1986 - "Gambit"
• 1987 - "School's Out" (Cretu & Thiers)
• 1987 - "When Love Is The Missing Word" (Cretu & Thiers)
• 1988 - "Don't Say You Love Me (Let Me Feel It)" (Cretu & Thiers)
• 1992 - "Rettungsringe sterben aus" (Cretu & Peter Cornelius)
• 1992 - "Nur die Hoffnung nicht"(Cretu & Peter Cornelius)
• 1993 - "Captain Right" (Cretu & Thiers)

Collaborations / Productions

• 1980 – Topaz: "Topaz"
• 1981 – Peter Kent "Happy Weekend"
• 1982 – Severine
• 1983 – Mireille Mathieu; "Ein Neuer Morgen"
• 1983 – Mary and Gordy
• 1983 – Peter Cornelius; "Fata Morgana"
• 1984 – Hubert Kah; "Goldene Zeiten"
• 1986 – Hubert Kah; "Tensongs"
• 1985 – Moti Special: Motivation
• 1987 – Mike Oldfield: Islands
• 1987 – Inker & Hamilton: Dancing Into Danger
• 1987 – Cretu And Thiers: School's Out
• 1988 – Cretu and Thiers: Belle Epoque
• 1989 – Hubert Kah; "Sound of My Heart"
• 1989 – Peter Schilling; The Different Story (World of Lust and Crime)
• 1992 – Peter Cornelius and Cretu: Peter Cornelius and Cretu
• 1998 – Trance Atlantic Air Waves Project The Energy of Sound
• 1999 – Andru Donalds; "Snowin' Under My Skin"
• 2001 – Andru Donalds; "Let's Talk About It"
• 2007 – Ruth-Ann Boyle; "What About Us"

Sandra

Michael Cretu worked as writer, producer and background vocalist for Sandra's albums:

• 1985: The Long Play [#12 Germany, #8 Norway, #2 Sweden, #18 Austria, #4 Switzerland]
• 1986: Mirrors [#16 Germany, #14 Norway, #40 Sweden, #13 Switzerland]
• 1987: Ten On One [#19 Germany, #28 Austria, #14 Switzerland]
• 1988: Into a Secret Land [#14 Germany, #18 Norway, #22 Sweden, #13 Austria, #9 Switzerland]
• 1988: Everlasting Love
• 1990: Paintings in Yellow [#4 Germany #30 Sweden, #14 Austria, #8 Switzerland]
• 1992: Close to Seven [#7 Germany, #20 Norway, #27 Sweden, #26 Austria, #13 Switzerland]
• 1992: 18 Greatest Hits [#10 Germany, #7 France, #36 Sweden, #27 Switzerland #1 Finland]
• 1995: Fading Shades [#42 Germany, #37 Switzerland]
• 1999: My Favourites [#16 Germany, #15 Norway, #43 Switzerland]
• 2002: The Wheel of Time [#8 Germany, #63 Austria, #68 Switzerland]
• 2007: The Art of Love

See also

• Sandra, singer and wife (1988–2007).
• Enigma music project.
• Moti Special
• Trance Atlantic Air Waves New Age, or trance music project, in collaboration with German DJ ATB.

References

1. ^ Michael Cretu on Myspace
2. ^ (Romanian)"Enigma Michael Creţu: întalnire cu omul invizibil" , Evenimentul Zilei, 14 October 2008
3. ^ "Ibiza: Pop-Produzent Cretu muss seine Villa abreißen". Der Spiegel. 2009-05-10. http://www.spiegel.de/reise/europa/0,1518,623917,00.html. Retrieved 2009-05-11. 

External links

• The Official Enigma website (in German)
• The Official Enigma website (international)
• Michael Cretu at the Internet Movie Database
• EnigmaMusic.com (fan site)

Persondata
Name	Cretu, Michael
Alternative names	Curly M.C.
Short description	Musician
Date of birth	18 May 1957
Place of birth	Bucharest, Romania
Date of death
Place of death