Jonathan Mendelsohn (singer)

Mendelsohn was born in Brooklyn, New York City, and raised in Upstate New York.He began writing songs at the age of 10 after learning chord progressions from his mother, a music teacher and pianist..^[5] He cites Top 40 radio as a major musical influence and Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and George Michael as inspiration for developing his own vocal style,  before discovering electronic music in the NYC Rave scene in the late 90’s^[6] In 2002, Mendelsohn was the season finale winner of 'Amateur Night' at the Apollo Theater, One of his first musical releases was with producer Chris Brann of Wamdue Project called “Forgiveness”  the release attracted the attention of Sony executives, and Mendelsohn was subsequently signed to Sony BMG.^[7] shortly after, but a change in executive leadership led to his release from the label before his debut could be launched.

Mendelsohn's first significant international release was "This Moment", a collaboration with Claus Terhoeven, one half of Cosmic Gate, under his Nic Chagall alias. Released in 2009, the track was featured multiple times on Armin van Buuren's A State of Trance radio show,^[8][9] and was later included on the Universal Religion Chapter 4 mix compilation.^[10]

In 2013, Mendelsohn did the vocals for the song "Imaginary" by Brennan Heart. It was part of the Defqon.1 endshow and got released on Brennan Heart's album "Evolution of Style".^[11] The song held the number one position on the Hard Dance Beatport Charts and was ranked in the Top 100 for 777 days.^[12] It was voted as best hardstyle track of the year by Q-dance.^[13] In 2019, "Imaginary" was certified gold in the Netherlands, and achieved the platinum award in 2022.^[14]

In 2015 Mendelsohn was featured in Hardwell's album "United We Are" with the collaboration "Echo". It was released as a single later that year and was ranked #1 on the Dutch iTunes charts and #2 worldwide.^[15]

Starting 2017 Mendelsohn worked together with Swedish producer Kaaze. Their collaboration with Hardwell "We Are Legends" was released on the Hardwell & Friends EP Vol.1 and was ranked #1 in the Bigroom Beatport Charts.^[16] Two more collaborations followed on Revealed Recordings in 2017 and 2019.