Manuel Ortega (born April 8, 1980) is an Austrian singer born in Steyregg. When he was ten years old, he began his career as a singer. He sang with the Florianer Sängerknaben in one of the oldest choirs from Austria.
His love for pop music led to him joining a band called BAFF when he was a teenager. Starting from an early age, meant Ortega has been able to make over 200 stages performances as of 2003. When he was 17, he took part in a search for talent and was chosen out of 1300 entrants to be the singer of a new group. Whilst successful, the group was not enough for Ortega and in 2001 he began a solo career.
The song El Amor, La Vida was the Austrian summer hit of 2001. In 2002 he represented Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song Say a word. Because of his Spanish temperament Manuel Ortega soon became known as the Austrian Ricky Martin, although his talents include song writing as well.