Following the recent Eurovision victories of
Turkey, Greece and Finland, only a handful of countries have
entered the competition for over twntry years, without gaining a
victory; Portugal Malta and Cyprus. Last year was especially
disappointing for the Cypriots as they had high hopes of performing
well in their backyard of Athens. However following the failure of
"When Angels Cry" to qualify from the semi-final, Cypriot
television chose to go back to an internal selection to choose its
entry for Helsinki.
This year sees the 25th Cypriot Eurovision entry
and after weeks of speculation, RIK formally announced at the end
of January that it had chosen Evridiki to fly the Cypriot flag in
May. This is the third time that Evridiki represents the
Mediterranean island following two her appearances in 1992 and
1994.
Evridiki was born in Lemesos, Cyprus in 1968 and grew up in the capital,
Nicosia. She was the first foreign student to study at the Studio des Varietes in Paris where her subjects were phonetics, guitar, theory, harmony, together with dance, body, facial expression and performance.
Later she enrolled at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA where she completed her music studies in phonetics, basic keyboard, ear training, history of music, history of jazz, jazz harmony, and instrumentation.
Already
establishing herself as a singer, Evridiki made three trips to the
Eurovision Song Contest in the 1980's, providing the backing
vocals, for the Cypriot entries in 1983, 1986 and 1987. In 1989
she moved to Athens performing in local venues and two years
later she released her debut album "Gia Proti Fora", which included songs by Alexis
Papadimitrou, Leonidas Malenis and George Theophanous. Around the
same time she began a personal relationalship with Theophanous, a
well known songwriter, and they were later to marry and together,
they had a son, Angelos, in November 1996.
Evridiki represented Cyprus in the Eurovision
Song Contest in 1992 with the song "Teriazoume",
finishing in 11th place, and then in 1994 in Dublin with "Ime
Anthropos Ki Ego", again finishing 11th. Both songs were
composed by Theophanous.
During
the 1990s she released a series of albums. Besides
George Theophanous, she has also worked with people like Vasilis
Papakonstantinou, Giorgos Hatzinasios, Yannis Spanos, Marios
Tokas, Vangelis Dimitriadis, Christos Dantis, Natalia Germanou,
Eleni Peta, Giorgos and Yannis Vardis, Stelios Rokkos, and Sakis
Rouvas, becoming one of the most popular and best selling singers
in Greece and Cyprus.
In 2000 she divorced Theophanous and broadening her musical repetoire in 2002, she
performed Taptim in the musical "The King and I",
produced by Mimi Denisi gaining very positive reviews from the
public and critics.
After her divorce and having
a break from recording for almost three years, Evridiki
released the album "Oso Fevgo Gyrizo" in which she wrote
a couple songs, for the first time. This record would be a turning
point in Evridiki's career giving her a new more rock oriented
sound and image. Since then she has been recognised as the most
successful Greek rock singers and has released another
critically-acclaimed album "Sto Idio Vagoni". She has
just released her new album called "13".
It
had been rumoured that Cypriot television had approched Evridiki
in 2005, in the hope of luring her back to the Eurovision Song
Contest, but in 2007, circumstances combined to bring her back to
the contest for the third time.
Evridiki's
new personal and musical partner is Dimitris Korgialas, who
has helped her to change her image and sound, and contributed many
songs to her recent albums. A successful musician and artist in
his own right, 35 year old Dimitris has composed this year's
Cyriot entry, his first involvement in the contest.
Rather
surprisingly the lyrics of the the song are in French, a first for
Cyprus, and were written by Poseidonas Giannopoulos, another
Eurovision newcomer. The song has also been recorded in English
and Greek.
The song was presented to the Cypriot
public and a very limited amount of international viewers on the
internet on a special Eurovision show on February 23rd. From the
moment it was unveilied, the electronic dance track "Comme Ci,
Comme Ca" has been a fan favourite, topping many internet
polls and despite very limited international promotion and being
given an early draw in the semi-final, it remains one of the
bookmakers' favourites for victory in Helsinki.
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CYPRUS @ EUROVISION