Leslie Mandoki is one of the busiest music producers in Germany today. He works with all the major companies of the recording industry as well as the biggest movie companies and numerous international stars.

Many years of experience in the music business have turned him into a renowned expert and visionary of innovative concepts and developments in the music industry. His excellent contacts to key personalities of the whole entertainment industry have helped him to create a network enabling the development of groundbreaking and exceptional co-operations.

Leslie Mandoki's eventful life and not at all streamlined career as a musician has been full of surprising turning points.

Born in Budapest, the drummer and bandleader of German descent belonged to the 1970s' student opposition in communist Hungary. Far beyond the system-conform mainstream, his Jazz-Rock formation "JAM" symbolized the longing for a free world. In 1975, he was forced to leave the country because of governmental repression. Accompanied by his two closest friends, László Bencker and Gábor Csupó, their flight was followed by a long odyssey. On his quest for freedom, he found more than that: a new home - in Germany.

In the "Golden West", after having been taught the hard way by the free market music industry, Leslie became established as a musician. After working as a singing drummer in various theatres, cafés with dancing and jazz festivals, he soon made a name for himself as a studio musician. As front man and lead singer of the band "Dschingis Khan", he then, almost unintentionally, won public recognition with no.1 hits in many countries and innumerable awards, gold - and platinum records. While being far away from his own artistic and musical visions, his years with Dschingis Khan have served Leslie as a kind of apprenticeship. His studio work and his first successes as a songwriter as well as dealings with various useful divisions of the commercial music industry finally enabled him to gain artistic freedom. In this time he made the acquaintance of many influential "men of action" of the music scene, who became friends over the years, such as Monty Lüftner, the founder of the BMG (Bertelsmann Music Group).

With his old school friend and so-called "muse twin", top arranger László Bencker, he founded the Park Studios in Munich, where he began to put his musical visions into practice with a small team under the name "Red-Rock Production". It was their perfectionism and hard work which brought Leslie and Laszlo their first gold and platinum records as well as various other awards as producers; at the time they worked on productions of such different artists as Engelbert, Placido Domingo, M.S.S.O. or Leslie's companion at the time, Amii Stewart, an American superstar with two international no.1 hits.

At the opening festivities of the Olympic Games in Seoul, Leslie sang alongside a number of world stars; the Mandoki/ Bencker- song became a no.1 hit in Asia.

Many years of common experience have turned Leslie Mandoki and Laszlo Bencker into a well-attuned team; as graduate musicians they are open for different styles and genres, true to their motto: "Music is a matter of taste; recording is a matter of dedication and professionalism." In the course of the years, many artists coming from the most diverse musical backgrounds have put their trust into Leslie and Laszlo, for example Milva, Karel Gott, Howard Carpendale, but also Kenny Loggins, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Jermaine Jackson, Pia Zadora, and many others.

In their studio work and the resulting music production, Leslie and Laszlo finally found a way to realize their original artistic vision. Leslie never let go of his passion for his artistic roots, the jazz-rock of the 1970s and intellectual pop music. Consequently, alongside his various productions, he created the Man Doki project featuring Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull), Jack Bruce (Cream), David Clayton-Thomas (Blood, Sweat & Tears), Bobby Kimball (Toto), multiple Grammy-winners Michael and Randy Brecker, Pino Palladino (Elton John, Billy Joel, Phil Collins), Nik Kershaw, Steve Khan, Al Di Meola, Bill Evans (Miles Davis Band), Larry Coryell, Anthony Jackson (Steely Dan, Paul Simon, Bee Gees, Chick Corea) and Victor Bailey (Madonna, Weather Report, Mary J. Blige). These old and close friends of Leslie's were joined by Chaka Khan, Steve Lukather (Toto), Guru (Jazzmataz) and Joshua Kadison to work on the album "People In Room N° 8" which was introduced to the public in Thomas Gottschalk's "Wetten, dass..." , Germany's most popular TV- show, and reached high positions in the charts, thus creating the first peak of this series later to be summarized in the retrospective album "SO FAR...". The Man Doki project represents the realization of a musical vision, which has always been oriented towards high quality rather than zeitgeisty mainstream values, aiming to define - also from an idealistic point of view - the balance between form and content.

In the year 2002, Leslie Mandoki once again gathered his artistic "community of values", this time accompanied by Manfred Mann's Earth Band singer Chris Thompson, to continue the Man Doki project. For the album trilogy "Soulmates", which includes a studio album as well as a remarkable adaptation for a string quartet and the "Jazz Cuts" record with many director's cuts and live recordings, Leslie Mandoki once again won great interest of the media and high praise by his critics. The "Soulmates" album didn't fail to succeed in the charts either; right after its release it hit the Top 40 album charts in Germany and remained there for over 2 months. The release of the following 2 albums of the trilogy ensured another chart entry of the concept album "Soulmates" months later.

In the following period, the Man Doki Soulmates played a number of widely noticed and successful concerts with different line-ups. Thereby some unique film and video footage was created, which would soon form the basis for the Man Doki Soulmates DVD "Absolutely Life", which reached seventh place of the DVD Charts as soon as it was released in 2003.

In April 2004 Mandoki once again proved himself to be a real show-stopper, when he served as musical director of the ZDF (Second German Television) broadcast TV show "50 Jahre Rock" (50 Years Of Rock), presented by Thomas Gottschalk.

Parallel to the TV broadcast the CD "50 Jahre Rock" was released and immediately reached the top of the charts, where it remained for several weeks.

The fact that Mandoki won an award like the traditional German "Goldene Europa" twice for such different endeavours as singing with "Dschingis Khan" (1980) and working as a jazz-rock producer (1993), quite clearly shows the ambivalence of his career. He encountered the "Goldene Europa" for the third time when he was co-producing the corresponding TV show in his native city, Budapest.

His work on a project in cooperation with patron Mikhail S. Gorbachev, a musical cross-over between orchestral pop music and traditional Russian melodies, shows his commitment to socio-political causes; a signal for bringing European youth closer together and breaking down cultural as well political barriers between East and West.

He continued working with a symphony orchestra when he produced Jennifer Rush's successful comeback album "Classics", which set new standards for the production of cross-overs between pop music and classical music.

Leslie Mandoki's cooperation with the Walt Disney Company, marked by many highlights in music as well as show biz, represents another important milestone in his career as a producer. His engagement as musical director for Walt Disney brought Leslie together with the superstar and fellow drummer Phil Collins in the year 1999, when they worked on the German version of the successful, Academy Award-winning Disney feature movie "Tarzan".

Leslie Mandoki and Phil Collins continued their teamwork for the Academy Award-nominated Disney film "Brother Bear" in 2003; it resulted not only in a beautiful film score, but also in an outstanding cinema success that reached the number one of the movie charts instantaneously and became a real box office hit.

The promotion of new talents is another important and successful part of Leslie's achievements as a producer. He brought together the popular teen idols Gil and The Moffats (widely known through the German youth magazine "Bravo" and the TV music channel "Viva") in the Park Studios to record the collectively written hit ballad "If You Only Knew", which reached no. 3 of the German single charts. Gil's debut album "Here I Am" made it to the Top 5 in Germany, reached no.1 in Asia and received numerous gold and platinum records.

Other newcomer productions include the albums of the singers Curly and Masha, which have received high praise by the media. However, when the breakthrough did not occur at once, Mandoki put his emphasis on long-term success; in 2005 Curly provided the title song "Stay" for the ARD (First German Television) broadcast telenovela "Sturm der Liebe" (Storm Of Love) and will be heard in more than 300 episodes of the highly successful series.

Among the young artists whose careers have been forged under Mandoki's musical direction, is also the exceptional vocal talent from Italy, Piero Mazzocchetti, whose debut single "L'eternitá" climbed into the Top 30 of the single charts right away. The identically named semi-classical album by the newcomer also stormed the charts within the shortest period of time.

In the past years, many other ambitious projects have been realized in the Park Studios in Tutzing.

Among them is the mega-successful no.1 band "No Angels", whose albums "Elle'ments" and "Now..Us" have been mainly recorded in Tutzing. Mandoki and Bencker provided and produced essential songs for both albums. The no.1 album "Heute vor 30 Jahren" (30 Years Ago Today) by the popular singer Peter Maffay was also recorded on the hill in Tutzing.

Another top-charts position was achieved with Joshua Kadison's sensational comeback album "Vanishing America", which is not only the appropriate follow-up to Joshua's million-selling debut album "Painted Desert Serenade", but also a thematic concept album, the virtue of which lies in its timelessness and independence from short-lived trends.

In the year 2005, the "50 Years Of Rock" line up participated in the Bambi-awarded ZDF (Second German Television) fundraising gala for the victims of the Tsunami. Leslie Mandoki was also in charge of one of the telephone lines for donations during the charity show, which entered the Guinness Book of Records as the TV show with the highest amount of received donations ever. The final song of the Charity Gala was also performed by the Man Doki Soulmates featuring Jon Lord, Greg Lake, Paul Carrack, Ian Anderson, Bobby Kimball and greatly successful young shooting-star Katie Melua.

Leslie Mandoki's next musical highlight was the "Daydream" production for the car manufacturer Audi; the audience was treated to a unique and magical music experience with an exclusive music concept along the lines of "Pop/Rock meets Classic".

With this and other magnificent live concerts, Leslie Mandoki managed to please not only his audiences and his clients, but also his fellow musicians.

After performing at numerous other spectacular live and TV shows world-wide, including the Quadriga-Awards-Night, the Chinese version of "Wetten, dass...?"(the popular German TV show 'Wanna bet, that...') and the José-Carreras-Gala, the Man Doki Soulmates were awarded the media award of the German Federal State of Baden-Württemberg as well as the "Radio Regenbogen" award in the category "Lifetime International" on March 31th, 2006 in the Schwarzwald Halle in Karlsruhe.

Leslie Mandoki is a man of great visions. After setting the benchmark by managing to win over world star Lionel Richie for the launch of the new Mercedes SL, he even surpassed his set goals for the new millennium with the successful communication concept for the launch of the SUV Audi Q7.

Peter Maffay once again chose the Park Studios in Tutzing to record and produce his no.1 album "Laut & Leise" (Loud & Quiet); Leslie Mandoki and Laszlo Bencker wrote three songs for their friend's platinum record, which received a nomination for the Echo, an important German music award in the year 2006. In the same year, Peter Maffay recorded his album "Begegnungen II" (Encounters II) in the Park Studios.

Nevertheless, Mandoki remains true to his roots; "Of course commercial success offers many enjoyable comforts", he says, "yet it must never be a musician's sole motivation. Every man needs a vision, a great dream he can hold onto, an image in his head that remains with him for his whole life - a goal! Sometimes, though very rarely, and thanks to the right friends, this vision may come to life. If all constructive freedom is used creatively and the controllable factors are operated in an ideal way, then one may dare to hope for substantial success."