Michael Hirte

Michael Hirte, a harmonica player born in Germany on October 10, 1964, in Spremberg, achieved immediate chart dominance across German-speaking territories with his first album, Der Mann mit der Mundharmonika, released in 2008 after he gained sudden prominence on the television program Das Supertalent. A catastrophic accident in 1991 had left him gravely wounded and comatose; once he regained his health, he turned to the harmonica for comfort. His exceptional skill on the instrument earned him a slot on Das Supertalent, the German adaptation of Britain’s Got Talent, where audiences across the German-language region came to know the details of his difficult past nearly as intimately as his musicianship. On the evening of November 29, 2008, he claimed victory on the program with a decisive 72.62 percent of the vote, far ahead of the runner-up’s 5.47 percent. Within weeks he secured a recording deal with Sony BMG, issuing Der Mann mit der Mundharmonika just before Christmas. The album topped the charts in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and included the modest singles “Ave Maria” and “You Raise Me Up.” Throughout 2009 Hirte conducted a wide-ranging concert tour across Germany to promote the release.