Mickael Carreira

Mickael Carreira made an immediate impact on Portuguese pop as a teenager. While most of his peers were still preparing for university, he had already collected his first platinum record. Raised by a professional musician father in a household steeped in music, Carreira began formal lessons at eleven, studying piano at the French Conservatory. Although that training first prompted him to write songs, he soon adopted guitar as his main instrument, developing under his father's tutelage. His swift maturation brought a concert debut at fifteen, when he shared the Olympia stage in Paris with his father. The experience intensified his commitment to artistic growth. One year later he appeared before three thousand listeners at Lisbon's Coliseum. From there Carreira concentrated on building an original repertoire and shaping a solo identity. Songwriter Ricardo Landum oversaw his development as a composer and helped assemble the material for his first album. In May 2006 he performed at the Atlantic Pavilion before nearly 17,000 people. Several months afterward, in July of that year, the self-titled debut Mickael arrived via Vidiscos. The twenty-year-old artist reached triple platinum within months. Nationwide tours followed, broadening and reinforcing an already large audience. A year later the follow-up Entre Nos entered the market and climbed to number 26 on the national airplay charts.