Rudy Micelli

1972 -

Rudy Micelli, a contemporary Christian music singer, was born in Bage, RS, Brazil. His parents and six brothers and a sister were singers and musicians who encouraged him to sing from his earliest years. At age three, he would spend hours pretending to be singing in church, using any object as a microphone while he sang along with recordings.

When he was five, the family moved to Porto Alegre, and Rudy began singing in church. Although he had been pretending to do this for two years, the reality was a little daunting at first. In time, as he became more confident, he was more at ease and by age thirteen was singing often and directing the church choir. In his teenage years he also directed a musical group, Cristo Esperanca Nossa (Christ Our Hope).

He began serious music study at age eighteen, at first with private voice lessons and then at Instituto Musiarte, Goethe Music School, Federal University of Rio Grande Do Sul, and other schools. This study and greater exposure led to performance opportunities and increasing success and recognition in the secular musical world. For over two years, he sang in high profile venues and enjoyed the adulation this exposure provided. Even so, he began to have second thoughts about the course of his life. He decided to consecrate his talent to spreading the gospel and ended his secular musical career.

At age 24 he came to the U.S. for further music study. He settled in Miami, Florida, and began to sing in area churches. In 1998, a year after he arrived, he was offered a recording contract with Sony Music, their stated purpose being to promote him as the next American-Latin singing superstar.

Because of his previous experience in the secular music world, he declined the offer, deciding instead to sing full-time in a self-supporting ministry. Opportunities to sing in an ever-widening circle developed, and today he travels throughout the U.S. and internationally, providing an effective gospel ministry in Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

ds/2009

Reger Smith, Jr., "In All Directions," Adventist Review, May 2005; Online Sources.