Mikkel Solnado & Joana Alegre


Mikkel Solnado was born October 1975 in Copenhagen, Denmark to the Son of Portuguese Actor Raul Solnado and his Danish Mother, Hanne Louise.. At 6 months old the family relocated to Portugal. 
It was at the early age of 11 in Portugal, Mikkel first found the band Iron Maiden and was fascinated by the band's drummer, Nicko McBrain. Mikkel´s father recognised his passion and helped build his first studio in the house where he first learned to play drums. Mikkel´s first band in Portugal was called Husk where he played drums, sang and wrote the lyrics. Wanting to move on from just playing playing drums Mikkel decided to pick up the guitar and began writing lyrics and composing melodies. 

In 1995, the promise of a more free and artistic lifestyle, not found in Portugal, brought his Family back to Denmark.Since moving back to his native country Mikkel lived the life he craved. He held various jobs including bars, nursery schools, support for youths at risk but it was his music at night that was developing his career path. The style Mikkel developed led him to start developing compositions for other musicians, especially hip-hop, writing songs for children's television programs, as well as voice-overs, and music sound design for online games for kids . After years of playing in Various Rock and Death Metal Bands Mikkel began working on producing "Gabriel Flies" and in 2006 this was the name given to the band that joined from 2007 to 2010. It was this period that enhanced Mikkel´s Production experience launching him into Professional Producer status while the team wrote jingles, songs, commercials and developed a better understanding of how the music industry worked. 

"We Can Do Anything" was the first single to launch Mikkel into the limelight. It started as a television ad for Volkswagen, but that quickly led people to call the ad agency to ask where they could buy the song. It was then that the agency proposed to help the musician and his band, and offered them a chance to record a video clip in Colombia. Suddenly a song written for an advert helped change Mikkel´s direction once again and Mikkel followed his passion to play again..The Monopolies and bureaucracy in Danish Radio at the time and the band´s differences in opinion of directions led Mikkel to move on to a solo career. With the death of his father, Raul Solnado in August 2009, the musician experienced a turnaround in his life and career. In Portugal, Mikkel´s friend Andre Cerqueira presented the song "We Can Do anything "on Commercial Radio and Mikkel found success.Tired of living in Denmark, he decided to return to Portugal especially after falling in love. With the arrows pointing to the destination Portugal, Mikkel Solnado moved to Lisbon, where he currently lives. Inspired by artists like Bon Iver, Jeff Buckley, Coldplay and John Mayer, Mikkel says his sound is noisy, dirty and dusty mixed with great melody. His career as both Musician and Producer continues to grow.