Jascha Richter (born 24 June 1963) is a Danish-American singer, songwriter, and musician best known as the lead vocalist and keyboardist of the

soft rock Soft rock (also known as light rock or mellow rock) is a form of rock music that originated in the late 1960s in the United States and the United Kingdom which smoothed over the edges of singer-songwriter and pop rock, relying on simple, mel ...

band Michael Learns to Rock, where he composes and sings most of their songs. Some of his best known songs include " 25 Minutes", " The Actor", " Sleeping Child", " That's Why (You Go Away)", " Take Me to Your Heart", "Complicated Heart", " Someday", "Wild Women", "Out of the Blue", "You Took My Heart Away" and " Paint My Love".

Early life

Jascha Richter was born on 24 June 1963 in

Concord, New Hampshire Concord () is the capital city of the U.S. state of New Hampshire and the county seat, seat of Merrimack County, New Hampshire, Merrimack County. As of the 2020 United States census the population was 43,976, making it the List of municipalities ...

, before his family decided to move back to Denmark, where they settled in

Aarhus Aarhus (, , ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus municipality, Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and app ...

. He holds both Danish and American citizenship. As a child, Richter started playing the

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

and

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

and then the piano. He was raised with classical music; however, in his early teenage years he started to play and compose pop music. Growing up, he listened to

Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, songwriter and pianist. His music and showmanship have had a significant, lasting impact on the music industry, and his songwriting partnership with l ...

Supertramp Supertramp were a British rock band formed in London in 1970. Marked by the individual songwriting of founders Roger Hodgson (vocals, keyboards and guitars) and Rick Davies (vocals and keyboards), the group were distinguished for blending p ...

and

Bee Gees The Bee Gees were a musical group formed in 1958 by brothers Barry Gibb, Barry, Robin Gibb, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio was especially successful in popular music in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and later as prominent performers in ...

among others.

Career

Richter is known as the brain behind the Danish

band Michael Learns to Rock, who have enjoyed success since the early 1990s, particularly in Asia. They scored number one chart hits in Norway and Denmark with " The Actor" and " That's Why (You Go Away)", respectively. Richter has also released two solo albums; ''Planet Blue'' in 2002 and ''Where I Belong'' in 2006. An extended play titled ''Dannevang'' was released in 2021.

Discography

Solo albums

* ''Planet Blue'' (2002) * ''Where I Belong'' (2006)

Extended plays

* ''Dannevang'' (2021)

Compilation albums

* ''Grænseløs Greatest'' (1999)

References

External links

Jascha Richter on Instagram
1963 births Living people 21st-century Danish male singers Danish pop musicians American people of Danish descent Danish rock musicians English-language singers from Denmark Danish male singer-songwriters Danish singer-songwriters Soft rock musicians Ballad musicians {{Denmark-musician-stub