Torsten Stenzel
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Torsten Stenzel (born September 27, 1971 in Bad Homburg , Germany ) is a German music producer and composer . He plays the church organ, piano and synthesizer .
Life
Stenzel began taking piano lessons with Andre Terebesi at the age of five. At the age of 13 he concentrated on the church organ as an instrument and at the age of 15 he passed the aptitude test as a church organist. In 1990 he released his first single Recall IV - Contrast on Zyx Records, in 1992 he had his first job as an A&R manager in the recording industry.
With his partner at the time, Zied Jouini, he ran the Crash Records label . His first release, NUKE-Nana, which he produced himself on the new label, was licensed to number 1 (Italy) and number 3 (Belgium) in the sales charts. In 1993 he started the collaboration with DJ Taucher , who had weekly events in the Music Hall in Frankfurt. Their first joint release was the single Happiness , which was remixed by Oliver Lieb and Booka Shade ; the second single Atlantis (1993: Planet Love Records) is today considered one of the classics in the trance area.
First label (1993–1998)
Stenzel founded his first own label Liquid Records in 1993 and started the Paragliders project with Oliver Lieb , which released the two singles Paraglide and Oasis on the Hamburg label Superstition . He continued to produce with his partners and contracted artists and DJs as well as Booka Shade, DJ Tatana , DJ Taucher , DJ Sakin , DJ Tool, Marc Green, DJ Talla and others. Stenzel released over 40 vinyl singles on Liquid Records.
The track Suspicious - Lovewaves , produced by Stenzel, was released on the Berlin label Low Spirit Records and remixed by Djane Marusha from Berlin, among others .
DJ Taucher & Stenzel
In 1995 Stenzel bought the rights to Planet Love Records , which he had previously run as A&R manager, and concentrated more on developing his trance sound with Taucher. They licensed their single Fantasy to Sony Dancepool and made it into the top 50 of the Mediacontrol sales charts. The third single Infinity also made it into the Top 50 in Germany.
By 1997, the duo had remixed over 52 other artists and their titles and was voted the third best remixer in the worldwide category by the readers of the club magazine Raveline . Stenzel and Taucher also remixed Faithless and God is a DJ , which came first in many European countries. Even Paul Oakenfold licensed Stenzel Diver productions for his compilations. The duo published their titles under the project names Red Light District and Diver & Ace, among others .
Sakin & Friends & Ibiza (1999-2006)
In 1998 Stenzel released the single Braveheart as the first release of his new project Sakin & Friends together with the Frankfurt DJ Sakin on his label Planet Love Records . They did a club cover of James Horner's score, Braveheart . After about four months a lot of European DJs played the title and it became a club hit. 1999 Stenzel licensed the title to the underground label Overdose and made a remix (Suspicious Remix) of the title. Only a short time after its release, the title entered the German Media Control Charts without a music video or similar promotional activities. Braveheart rose to number 3 in the German charts, to number 1 in the German dance charts and also made it to the top of the sales charts in England, France and Denmark. Today Braveheart is one of the most successful trance records ever released, with over 650,000 units sold . The duo's second single, Nomansland , made it to number 10 in Germany and 16 in England, and their debut album Walk on Fire charted successfully in Germany. After this success, Stenzel bought a house in Ibiza and moved his recording studio to the Balearic island.
York
After the studio was completed, he immediately worked on his projects, including York, which he had started with his brother Jörg Stenzel in 1998. Her second single On The Beach was released on Dj Talla 2 XLC's label Suck me Plasma and later licensed to Sony Music Germany and on the Manifesto label in England. Her previous single The Awakening reached number 11 on the UK charts; it was the first trance title to use electric guitars as the main element. With over 250,000 units sold, The Awakening was one of the best-selling singles that did not reach the top 10 in England. On the Beach was a cover version by Chris Rea and immediately made it to number 3 in England and in the German Top 100 and Top 10 in the Billboard USA Charts. Stenzel had his second big hit after Braveheart . Chris Rea was enthusiastic about Stenzel's cover version, which sold more units than the original from 1986, and supported the promotion with a joint appearance on the British Top of the Pops Show. Chris Rea and Stenzel wrote more songs together and so the release Watermen , Your Love is Setting Me Free , came about, which was remixed by the well-known British act, among others.
Moby
Since Moby's Go was released in 1991, Stenzel has been a huge fan of Moby. In 2001 Moby's manager called him and asked if he would like to remix the new single Porcellain . Stenzel made a deep club remix that was later released on Mute Records .
Ibiza projects
In Ibiza in 1999, Stenzel met DJ Sin Plomo, who worked in the Space Club ( We Love Sundays ) and the well-known KM 5 Club. They started an intensive collaboration, which resulted in several "km 5" albums, which Stenzel successfully licensed on Richard Branson's Virgin Records . Cooperations with Ibiza-based DJ Paul Lomax followed. With his chill-out productions, Stenzel also made it to the well-known “Cafe del Mar” compilation and to the Buddha Bar in Paris. He also released an album and several singles with Matt Caseli, who works at Pacha . The result was the first album with Angela Heldmann alias Asheni, which combines retro jazz and electronic elements. The album Butterfly Survival Kit from Asheni he published in Offshore Music Switzerland / EMI and in Asia, Japan, China and Taiwan Hi Note Records . In 2004 Stenzel met Sven Greiner (DJ Shog). After only a few trance productions in the previous years, he produced with Shog Trance on the newly founded trance label 7th Sense Recordings . Numerous publications followed under various project names such as Mandala Bros. and Jolly Harbor.
Tarja Turunen
In 2006 the Finnish rock singer Tarja Turunen , the ex-singer of Nightwish , was looking for new songs for her first solo album. Stenzel's British friend and songwriter Adrian Zagoritis sent her the jointly written chill-out title Iceflowers , which had previously appeared on the chill-out album Peace von York. Turunen decided to write more music for the album with Stenzel, and so a total of five tracks were created for the debut album My Winter Storm in collaboration with him. Turunen's album was a worldwide success and received various platinum and gold awards in Finland, Russia, Germany and was released by Universal Music in seventy countries.
Los Angeles and Antigua
In 2006 Stenzel traveled to the USA to sign a record deal for the album he had pre-produced by Jennifer Paige (No. 1 Hit Crush ). She introduced him to the songwriter Rick Nowels. He asked him if he would like to play the keyboard for him. Stenzel then played on the single Chickfit Keyboard, released in 2007, and on new songs by Canadian Nelly Furtado and English singer Joss Stone . 2007 Stenzel wrote his first three songs with Rob Davis, among others, Kylie Minogue's hit Can not Get You Out Of My Head wrote. After almost 10 years in Ibiza, Stenzel moved to the west Indian island of Antigua and built his new studio Midway Studios . He worked there for a year and a half before building the new jungle studio in his home . In 2008 Stenzel completed the trance album of the Croatian singer Narany, who was voted best national singer in Croatia in 2008.
Due to its new location close to the USA, numerous new projects and connections were created. In 2010 he remixed the RnB star Shontelle for Motown Music and produced a chill / lounge album with Donald Trump's ex-wife Marla Maples. He also started various projects with local artists such as Jus Bus, Logiq, Claudette Peters, Tian Winter and the reggae singer Promise.
On February 1, 2013, the remix album Tubular Beats was released in collaboration with Mike Oldfield . Unlike previous club mixes, the album is a real collaboration between Oldfield and Stenzel, using parts of the original multitrack tapes as well as parts newly recorded by Oldfield. Tarja Turunen sings the title Never Too Far on the album .
Film music
In 2007, shortly after his arrival in Antigua, Stenzel met the German film producer Roland Hergert through his Antiguan friend and film producer Bert Kirchner, who was about to finish filming his new film Fire . Stenzel was commissioned to compose the film music and wrote his first soundtrack. Another independent film, Memoirs of the Blue by Kirchner followed shortly thereafter .
Kirchner and Stenzel and Kirchner's son Shabier have been running the film production company "Wadadli Filmstudios" since 2009.
Awards
- 1999 Echo nomination: Sakin & Friends for Best National Dance Act
- Planet Radio Award: Braveheart was the most wanted track on radio in 1999
- Gold in Germany: 250,000 CDs sold: Sakin & Friends, Braveheart
- Silver in England: 200,000 CDs sold: Sakin & Friends, Braveheart
- Silver in England: 200,000 CDs sold: York, On the Beach
- Platinum in Denmark: 1,000 CDs sold: Sakin & Friends, Braveheart
- Gold in Denmark: 5,000 CDs sold: Sakin & Friends, Braveheart
- Gold in Greece: over 30,000 CDs sold: Pop Idol winner High 5
- Gold in Russia: 10,000 CDs sold: Tarja Turunen, My Winter Storm
- Platinum in Finland: over 30,000 CDs sold: Tarja Turunen, My Winter Storm
- 2012 Gold in Germany: 100,000 CDs sold: Tarja Turunen My Winter Storm
- 2018 silver in England: 200,000 units sold with: Au / Ra, Panic Room (Music Management)
Discography (York)
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Chart positions Explanation of the data |
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Singles (selection)
Media Control / Charts InternationalEach publication is named with chart placement and country code.
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Studio albums
DJ mixes / compilations
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Filmography
- 2008 Fire , Motion Picture, Arenico Production, produced by Rolant Hergert, feat. Gary Dourdan, Cosma Shiva Hagen, Ken Douken
- 2007 Fire, Making Of , Produced by Shab Kirchner, interview Gary Dourdan
- 2008 Memoirs of the Blue Soundtrack , Halivantigua Films, Produced by Bert Kirchner & Luke Hanson
Web links
- (c) https://hitparade.ch/song/DJ-Energy-and-Tatana/End-Of-Time-3914
- (d) http://www.everyhit.com/searchsec.php
- (e) https://hitparade.ch/search.asp?cat=a&search=tatana
- (i) https://www.allmusic.com/artist/mn0000962062
Individual evidence
- ↑ NUKE-Nana
- ↑ artistwiki Paragliders
- ↑ http://www.discogs.com/Faithless-God-Is-A-DJ/master/55877
- ↑ discogs.at Red Light District
- ↑ Sakin & Friends
- ↑ http://web5.dimag.net/york_v12/en/bio/index.html
- ↑ http://www.discogs.com/Various-12000-Ohm-Suck-Me-Plasma-Compilation/release/18339
- ↑ www.bbc.co.uk/totp/
- ↑ discogs.com: Watermen Meets Chris Rea - Your Love Is Setting Me Free
- ↑ Torsten Stenzel Remix
- ↑ http://music.barnesandnoble.com/Caf-del-Mar-Vol-12/e/8431042013833
- ↑ Pacha
- ↑ Asheni
- ↑ Angela Heldmann at Discogs (English)
- ↑ [1] ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Chart sources: DE UK
- ↑ Music Sales Awards: UK
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stenzel, Torsten |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German music producer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 27, 1971 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bad Homburg , Germany |