An Xtra Happy Birthday; February 9th

Yesterday we celebrated three Eurovision birthdays. Today, however, we bring you a total of six birthday Eurostars. The oldest was born in the mid 1930s, while the youngest wasn’t born until the early 90s. We give you five birthday boys and one birthday girl; Ledina Celo! 

Joe Grech, 83

Joe represented Malta at the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin. This was their debut year, and Joe performed the song “Marija l-Maltija”. It wasn’t just the firs song to be performed in Maltese on the Eurovision stage, it was also the first time a song was performed in ant Semitic language. It did not achieve great success, however, as it finished dead last.

Frederik Ndoci, 58

Frederik represented Albania at the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki. He performed the song “Hear My Plea”, in the most difficult semi-final in the history of the contest. Since only ten out of 28 competing countries would qualify for the grand final, Frederik’s 17th place wasn’t good enough. Due to this, he didn’t reach the final.

Gerard Lenorman, 73

Gerard Lenorman represented France at the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin. He performed the song “Chanteur de charme”, finishing in tenth place.

Theofilos Pouzmpouris, 27

Theofilios represented Greece at the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen. He did so as part of the duo Freaky Fortune. In addition, they were joined on stage by rapper Riskykidd. In the second semi-final, they performed the song “Rise Up”. They finished in 7th place, thus qualifying for the grand final. There, they reached 20th place.

Ledina Celo, 41

Ledina Celo represented Albania at the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv. She performed the song “Tomorrow I Go”. Due to their good result in the previous year, Ledina Celo was directly qualified for the final. In the grand final, she finished in 16th place.

Vukacin Brajic, 34

Vukacin represented Bosnia and Herzegovina at the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo. He performed the song “Thunder and Lightning” in the first semi-final. There he finished 8th, thus qualifying for the grand final. On the Saturday night he finished in 17th place.

All of us here at escXtra wish today’s birthday stars the very best of celebrations!