An Xtra Happy Birthday; September 12th

Even though we are sending greetings to only three countries today, we have four Eurovision birthdays to celebrate. As we all know; this is in no way a record. The age gap between the oldes and the yougest, however, is quite likely the largest we’ve seen; 64 years! 

Mathé Altéry, 80

Mathé represented France in the first ever Eurovision Song Contest, back in 1956. She performed the song “Le temps perdu”. The only thing we know about her result is that she didn’t win. This is due to the fact that only the winner was announced this year. The remaining 13 songs are registered in shared 2nd place.

Dino Merlin, 55

Dino Merlin has represented Bosnia and Herzegovina at Eurovision twice as a singer. The first time was back in 1999, when he performed “Putnici” with Beatrice. They finished 7th, having received 86 points. Twelve years later he returned to the contest, with the song “Love in Rewind”. As this was one of the big pre-contest favorites it was a bit disappointing for them to finish in 6th place. Dino was also the songwriter of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s debut entry “Sva bol svijeta” from 1993.

Jonatan Cerrada, 32

Jonatan Cerrada represented France at the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest in Istanbul. He performed the song “Á chaque pas”, finishing in 15th place. Som people remember the performance particularly well, as Jonatan was joined on stage by a woman on really, really hight stilts.

Imri, 26

Imri Represented Israel at the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv. He qualified for the final by finishing in third place in the second semi-final with his song “I Feel Alive”. In the grand final he finished in 23rd place, out of 26 competing countries. Though this was Imri’s first time at Eurovision as lead singer, it was not however his first time on the Eurovision stage. Both in 2015 and 2016 he did backing vocals for Israel, backing Nadav Guedjand and Hovi Star.

All of us here at escXtra wish Imri, Jonatan, Dino and Mathé the very best of birthdays!