| |
"As a kid, Michaelina loved Aretha Franklin, Nancy Wilson and Barbra
Streisand, because she really liked their styles." Michaelina recalls, "I
didn't just put on an album and go 'Oh wow. This is great!'" Something
inside her told her to listen and learn how they did what they did. Her
Godmother was an opera singer who powered music into her. She taught
her how to breathe…and how to break down the structure of a song like
the steps of a dance. She gave her all her keys and unlocked the
mystery. She will always be grateful for that.
Michaelina, who was in the USAF "Airmen of Note," Presidential Band,
while they were recording for Capital Records met another great
influence—Sarah Vaughn. Sarah heard her sing, and she told her "YOU
CAN SING." Michaelina had always loved Sarah's voice. "She was magical in
her technique. It was like she never took a breath."
|
|
|
Michaelina has a few tricks of her own. She is awe inspiring not
only in one language, but two. Though her height and fairness
immediately display her Swedish ancestry; her statuesque beauty, her
powerful focus and fire were born from a Latin legacy. Spanish is
her first language and Latin music her first love—given by her
mother. It is this part of her repertoire—to audiences of all
languages that invariably brings down the house. It is something to
be seen. Her music has a seductive pulse originating straight from
the heart which must be experienced in person. |
|
Show business has been in her blood from the start. Born at the Queen
of Angels Hospital in East LA and raised in the Latin Community of
Southern California, Michaelina's childhood was spent singing and
dancing in her parents' neighborhood Mexican restaurant (with her sister
and four brothers) and the music carried her out into the street.
Michaelina states "I think I found my essence as 'a kid on the road.'
I've been singing in public since I was six years old. It's funny now.
My parents never promoted me as a singer—they always saw me as a
dancer, and I love to dance—but everybody else back then started to
think that this little girl—this tiny person—was pretty awesome on
the mic. I guess that's when I knew that this was what I was born to
do." The caliber of her professionalism and her graceful command of the
stage is telling of Michaelina's early career.
|
Inspired by her childhood love of theater and musicals, she
starred in the Follies Bergere as a singer and a dancer. "It was a
wonderful experience." There she worked with world-class
choreographers and her training still shows. This is no
hang-on-the-mic stand singer. You can feel the music roll through
her on stage. Her poise. Her posture. Her hands as expressive as
a Flamenco dancer on fire. It comes from within, it comes with the
territory. She's appeared with bands and orchestras across Mexico
and Latin America, but today in Los Angeles, her own star is
rising. With her debut Latin Album—Sonidos de Luz—breaking
across America now, she's looking forward to the future.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Mike
Douglas Show with Joan Rivers |
|
She recently played to 15,000 at Dodger Stadium, 110,000 at Whittier
Narrows, as a special guest artist with Jose—Jose in concert. She
delighted the International Radio Musical Convention. On television,
you can catch her new video 'Y Todavia,' featuring Rudy Galindo—the
reigning world male figure skating champion, and on Mother's Day (May
11, 1997) she joined Englebert Humperdinck and Bebu Silvetti's 54-piece
orchestra in a lush, romantic special on DirectTV. She's scheduled for
lots more TV, Radio and live musical appearances in support of her
albums.
|
|
