An Xtra Happy Birthday; March 3rd

The March birthday bonanza just keeps growing! Four birthdays yesterday, add one and we get five today! The oldest was born right after WWI, while the two youngest were born in the late 80s. Four of them didn’t achieve the results they had hoped for at Eurovision. However, the fifth, or should we perhaps say first, won the contest. We give you Lys Assia! 

Lys Assia, 94

Also known as the Queen of Eurovision, Lys Assia represented Swizerland at the very first contest, in 1956 in Lugano. She participated with two songs, “Refrain” and “Das alte Karussell“. As we all know, she won this very first contest, with her French entry, “Refrain”. As one of very few artists, Lys has represented her country four times at Eurovision. Her other two participations were in 1957, when she finished 8th with “L’enfant que j’étais” and in 1958 when she almost won again, finishing 2nd with “Giorgio“.
In 2011, 55 years after her first participation, she again tried winning the Swiss ticket to Eurovision with “C’était ma vie“, finishing 8th. The year after, she submitted “All In Your Head“, without making it into the national final. In both these most recent attempts Lys was working with Ralph Siegel.

Anmary, 38

Anmary represented Latvia at the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Baku. Her song was called “Beautiful Song”. However, the televoters and juries didn’t seem to agree with this. She only received 17 points, thus finishing third to last in her semi-final.

Cristina Scarlat, 37

Cristina represented Moldova at the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen. She performed the song “Wild Soul”, finishing 16th in the semi-final. Due to this, she did not get the opportunity to perform her song in the grand final. She also participated in the Moldovan national selections in 2011 “Every Day Will be Your Day” and 2013 “I Pray”.

Kasia Mos, 31

Kasia Mos represented Poland at the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv. She performed the song “Flashlight” in the first semi-final. She finished 9th, thus qualifying for the grand final. There however, she wasn’t as successful, finishing in 22nd place out of 26 competing countries.

Elnur Huseynov, 31

Elnur Huseynov represented Azerbaijan both at the 2008 and 2005 Euroviion Song Contests. In 2008 he performed the country’s debut entry “Day After Day” alongside Samir Javadzadeh. They finished 6th in the first semi-final, thereby qualifying for the grand final. On the Saturday night they finished in eigth place. Seven years later Elnur returned to the contest with the beautiful and powerful ballad “Hour of the Wolf”. Again her managed to secure a spot in the final, this time by finishing 10th in his semi-final. In the grand final he just missed out on another top 10 result, finishing 12th.

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