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FRANK PETERSON
Frank Peterson was born on the 20th of December in 1963 in Geesthacht a Hamburg suburb.
He was taught music theory and piano playing since he was four. He learnt to play synthesizer and guitar -
as acoustic as electric in the young age. But he has never had a classical training, so he always had to
learn everything himself. Then he picked up arranging and sound engineering.
In the early 80's Frank applied for a job in Hamburg store that sells music studio equipment. There he began working
on his first demo recordings. Soon he got to know Michael Cretu and showed him his demo tapes. Michael liked them so
much that he invited Peterson to Munich for cooperative work at Data-Alpha-Studio. Frank agreed and became a
keyboarder in Sandra's band - Arabesque ex-vocalist, who had just begun her solo career. He was often credited as
Frank Peter at that time.
He got his first recognition in 1985 when Maria Magdalena sung by Sandra went number one in charts. He continued his
playing in Sandra's band, while he started writing music for other famous singers, whose songs were on top.
In 1989 Cretu got married with Sandra, and they with their band, including Peterson moved to Ibiza Island (Spain).
On Ibiza Frank and Michael began working at a brand new project. The first result was the single - Sadeness Part
I that united the medieval mystique and modern rhythms, religiousness and sexuality. It went popular on the radio
and took the top chart positions. That means that the public was ready to accept the project with intrigues title
of Enigma, which is secret and riddle in Latin. It was also interesting that Sadeness was prohibited in some
Catholic countries - it was said to abuse feelings of followers. The single success (that was even scandalous)
surprised its creators, so Cretu and Peterson continued the work on the debut Enigma album. For making it more
mysterious and wishing to be incognito they made up the nicknames - Frank was F.Gregorian and Michael was Curly M.C.
The title of the album was the year of its creation - 1990 written in Latin numerals - MCMCXC a.D. It's worth
mentioning that The Voice & The Snake was solely written by Frank. This track is inspired by a part of
Bible - Apocalypse. It was one of the most dark and terrifying songs in the album. The album became platinum and gold
in many countries just some months after. Some times later there were many Enigma clones, they are usually united in
the Enigmatic genre.
Frank left Ibiza in 1991 and moved to Hamburg: he decided to become a music producer. The formal reason of leaving
Ibiza was impossibility of working at other projects. He decided to start his career from scratch.
Frank met Tomas Schwarz - a talented keyboarder - at his vacation in Spain and they began making a creative team.
Soon, Tomas invites Matthias Meissner - a virtuous keyboarder who dealt with him in 1988 for a cooperative work.
These three composer and a musician as well as Frank's wife Susana Espelleta and their assistant Michael Wehr
comprises a powerful creative team. Their first collaborative album - Sadisfaction was inspired by the debut album of
Enigma, for instance it also used sampled Gregorian chant.
Frank's nickname (Gregorian) was used as the project title that is associated with Gregorian chants. They are
originating from VII-IX centuries. Liturgical songs of occidental Christian churches came from Syria and Palestine
and soon got widespread in Western Europe. The word of 'Gregorian' is related to Pope Gregory I who put the monks'
songs in the collection.
Sadisfaction was obviously similar to Enigma, but had the more commercial purpose (however, the Gregorian album was
merely successful). The vocal parties were performed by Sisters of Oz and had a more pop oriented sound than further
Enigma. Then Once In A Lifetime single was released that became a style standard of Nemo Studio, it was sung by
Sarah Brightman (in Dive album) and two times by Princessa (Spanish version for Princessa album and English version
for I Won't Forget You album). Other single - So Sad had a direct connection to famous Sadeness
(even titles are alike), but was made in less dark tones. One more interesting fact is that the tile of the album -
Sadisfaction (not Satisfaction) was written with a deliberate mistake. This method was used by Peterson in Sadeness
(not Sadness!). In the former and latter letters game is intended - it should remind the name of Marquise de Sade
who was famous for his scandalous erotic novels of the late XVIII.
For the next eight years Frank Peterson produced Sarah Brightman and Ofra Haza. During this time there was no release
by the name of Gregorian. Frank considered that the market was oversaturated with Enigmatic music, but in 1999 he
decided to make a brand new project with the familiar title - Gregorian.
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