Michael Junior

Michael Junior , since 2002 Michael Jr. , actually Michael Verschuere, (born April 21, 1986 in Eernegem near Bruges ) is a Belgian singer who became known as a child star .

Life

Michael Junior was born as Michael Verschuere near Bruges as one of eight siblings. Michael Junior, whose great-grandmother was an operetta singer, developed a passion for singing as a child. He became a fan of the Belgian singer Helmut Lotti , to whom he sang during a concert break in 1998. Helmut Lotti was impressed by the voice of the 12-year-old boy and invited him to record a duet with him. The first musical collaboration was the duet "Panis Angelicus" on Helmut Lotti's German version of his album Helmut Lotti Goes Classic II , which was released in 1998. The duet was also taken over on Helmut Lotti's Christmas album A Classical Christmas with Helmut Lotti , which also includes a solo performance by Michael Junior with the title “Silent Night”. Michael Juniors manager became Piet Roelen.

In 1999 Michael Junior's debut album Droomland was released (German version Traumland ; Canadian version Dreamland ), which reached number 14 in the Flemish charts. In addition to interpretations of classical titles and folk songs, Droomland also contained a duet with Helmut Lotti, which he had written himself, and the duet Panis Angelicus . In 2000, a special edition of the video Dreamland was released in Canada , but it contained one less song than the CD of the same name. Michael Junior was a guest star on Helmut Lotti's numerous tours from 1998 to 2002. His second album and the first after the broken voice was released in 2002 under the title Musica É La Vita and contained cover versions of well-known Italian songs. Michael Junior now called himself Michael Jr. Musica É La Vita stayed in the Flemish charts for 5 weeks and reached number 28.

After a lengthy musical break, Michael Jr. sang the songs Pié Jesu and Ave Maria in a duet with Lisa del Bo in 2010 , which appeared on Lisa del Bo's album My Special Prayer that same year .

Awards

• 2000: Young Artist Award in the category "Outstanding Young International Performer"

Discography

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

Dreamland   DE 41 10/18/1999 (4 weeks)   AT 31 11/21/1999 (5 weeks) Musica e la vita   DE 68 03/04/2002 (1 week)   AT 69 03/03/2002 (2 weeks)

• 1999: Droomland
• 1999: Dreamland
• 1999: Dreamland
• 2002: Musica É La Vita
• 2004: You Raise Me Up (CD single)
• 2006: For Life

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Flemish Charts for Droomland
2. ↑ Flemish charts for Musica É La Vita
3. ↑ See lisadelbo.be ( Memento of the original from 23 August 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Chart sources: DE AT