Michael (Misha) Shengaout was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, on February 22, 1971. His parents are Vladimir Shengaout, (1933-2020), engineer who switched career to be a translator from Japanese, and Inna Satunovsky (b. 1937), piano teacher. Misha’s love with the classical music started when he heard Mozart’s Symphony #40 at the tender age of 4, same year he learned to read. Two years later he started piano lessons with his mother’s friend, also a piano teacher.
Misha graduated high school in 1987 at the age of 16 and continues his studies in Moscow, at the State University of Management. He left for Atlanta, US in November of 1990, where he had relatives. In US he confirmed his educational credentials as B.Sc. with double major in Mathematics and Computer Science, but had to work as a night cleaner at the hotel Nikko, Atlanta (now Grand Hyatt) until finally getting a software development job with Delta Airlines in November, 1991. He worked as a software developer and later – software architect until April, 2023, when he finally retired due to his illness. One of the systems he wrote managed images designed and released by Coca Cola for Atlanta Olympics in 1996. Misha was considered an “essential” employee for the duration of the Olympics, and missed the explosion at the Olympic Park by about 2 minutes. He also designed an insurance claim system for a large Atlanta-based reinsurance company, which has paid tens of billions of dollars to date.
Misha was married in 1998, divorced in 2016, and has three children, two daughters and a son with a severe form of autism. Even though his marriage didn’t work out, he continues to be a close friend with his ex wife, whom he cherishes very much. His spouse is a Licensed Acupuncturist, and Misha learned a lot about the acupuncture, and Chinese “Five Elements” concepts. “Five Elements” concepts, with seasons, imagery and colors flowing into each other, was incorporated in the structure of Misha’s albums.
Misha resurrected his musical life in 2004, when his mother, Inna, presented him Sibelius music notation package with Garritan sample library. At first, Misha started working with the classical music, writing a piano concerto, Adagio for Strings and a symphonic poem “Peter the Great”. In 2008, Misha decided to produce a rock album, “Primary Elements”, which was released in 2012. It was Misha’s studio project, which he created under the name “Six Elements”.
In October, 2019, Misha was diagnosed by Stage IV, incurable colon cancer. The mean survival time for this illness is 25 months, meaning 50% of the patients die prior to that time. However, as of August, 2024, his health remains stable. Even before the diagnosis, Misha spent significant amount of time studying and applying philosophy and psychology, aiming to find reliable way to deal with suffering and live a happy, productive life. At the time of diagnosis, he was already planning several projects to spread the message of the long term happiness: to love and do what is meaningful. It is his belief that as a mankind we are not good at love and don’t quite know what “meaningful life” even means.
Diagnosis sped up these projects, and in 2019 Misha started working on the next album, quite appropriately called “The Stories of Love”. He also started a motivational literary project “Misha Elements” in August, 2024, with the motivational stories about love, meaningful life, reviews of the relevant books, essays, interviews and so on.
Misha’ is ‘s spiritual convictions may be boiled down to a single word – “Jesusonian”. He believes that a personal spiritual experience should be the main source and guidance for each individual with healthy psyche.