Manuel Ortega is an Austrian singer. Son of a Spanish mother and an Austrian father, Ortega began his career as a singer when he was 10 years old. He sang with the Florianer S�ngerknaben 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 where he danced with the Ukrainian ballroom dancer, and Eurovision Dance Contest 2007 runner-up Yulia Okropiridze. 

April 8th, 1980 in Steyregg (Age 44)