Iceland

[[image:Johanna.jpg width="165" height="174" align="right" caption="Yohanna"]]
  **Artist** **Bio**: The singer thats representing the country of Iceland in this year's Eurovision is a female singer by the name of Yohanna (Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir). She was born in Copenhagan, Denmark on October 16th, 1990.Yohanna is currently 18 years old and has been singing since before she was able to talk. Her family moved to Rykjavik, Iceland when she was two years old and at the age of 8 they moved once again, this time to Hafnarfjörðu.  Shortly after her family moved to Iceland is when Yohanna got her big break. She was one of 700 children who competed in a music contest and a singing teacher, Maria Bjork, now her manager, recegonized her potential and offered her a spot in her childrens singing school. She recorded her first album at the age of 9 years old and it was released on her 10th birthday. Since then she has released three more albums. Starting her career at such a young age has really helped develop the way she sings, and till this day her main focus is concentrating on developing her vocal skills. Her teenage years were far from average, spending long periods away from home in places like New York or Los Angeles. After helping produce her second album, Thomas Yezzi, a sound engineer, commented that, "she is a young, white Icelandic girl with the soul of a fifty year old black woman. She's really amazing". On stage Johanna will be accompanied by [|Friðrik Ómar]  and Hera Björk as backing-vocalists. One of the strange things is that both of her back-up singers played the same roles for the Euroband group that participated in last years Eurovision! Besides singing Yohanna uses her talent to help teach children how to sing at the school where she grew up. Although formerly a child star, Yohanna appreciates that her performance in the Eurovision Song Contest will be her biggest show ever, easily.



media type="youtube" key="8w97Z1iwKro" height="287" width="335" media type="custom" key="3793421"  Originally the song was written for Tinatin, she was producing an album 5 years ago but the song never made it to her album. After requesting permission from Tinatin to enter it into the Eurovision 2009 contest they proceeded forward. While this song springs into motion, it follows a sort of dreamy, upbeat and at times intense pattern. It definately reminds one of an irresistable love balled.. When listening to the lyrics it becomes apparent that this song is about an emotional break-up. The question of "Is it over?" presents itself frequently in the chorus. This question is somewhat repetitive and perhaps a little nonsensical though. The reasons for this is stated in the song,. The verse that reads "If you really knew me, you wouldn't do this to me, definitely implies something bad has happened (a break-up). So, singing over and over again "Is it over?" seems like kind of a moot point because it is already known that the break-up has occurred. Otherwise the lyrics flowed quite smoothly and were immensely poetic.
 * Song Information:** The entry chosen for Iceland in this years Eurovision 2009 contest is "Is It True" performed by Yohanna. English was the language chosen for the vocals. The song is also sung in [|Russian],[|French], [|Spanish], and [|German]. Yohanna sings the song in all four of those languages. The song and its [|lyrics] were written by Óskar Páll Sveinsson, Chris Neil, and Tinatin Japaridze. They are shown below.

There was a cello, keyboards, a bass, and drums that made up the accompanying band. In the YouTube video, the band members are Kur Hrafn Birgisson, Eythor Gunnarsson, Robert Thorhallsson, Johann Hjorleifsson and Sigurbjarki Gunnarsson. It was about the 2:50 min of the song when it really became electryfying. This is when Yohanna's voice split the air with intense vocals. Her range increased and decreased immensely bringing a deciding close to the song. At only 18 yrs old Yohanna has quite the voice and a reputation that follows close behind. The vocals that Yohanna possess are extremely eclectic and inviting. She has amazing tone recognition and the ability to match that recognition with her voice. At times the song carries a blast from the past in sounding like Maria Carey, or Celine Dion, who she describes as one of her many influences. The reason for this is that her vocal range seems quite similar, and the actual tone of her voice is also quite similar to Maria's.


 * Narrative of Entry:** The Icelandic National Song Contest ‘Söngvakeppni Sjónvarpsins’ was where Yohanna got her fame this year. There were 217 songs submitted to Ríkisútvarpið (RÚV) which is the local TV station. They had a plan which had worked in previous years to ask the public to submit entries to them for consideration into the National Song Contest. Yohanna competed in the finals that were held on February 14, 2009 after winning in the semi-finals on January 10, 2009.According to an article in [|The Gregorian Times] "The song won the national finals by a staggering 44%!" The [|Eurovision Family website] says "‘Is It True?’ received 19,076 votes while the song in second place received 10,696 votes." This is evident by the chart shown below for the top 4 finalists and their votes received.

media type="custom" key="3805085"

Before any of this happened though, Yohanna admits that the song is not her idea at all. The truth of the matter is that her friend Óskar Páll Sveinsson e-mailed her the song and asked her if she would sing it. "After listening to the song a few times I was very impressed, so I decided to give it a try!" This was said in an interview with [|ESCKAZ]. On May 12, 2009 the semi-finals took place and Icelanders got what they wanted! Their entry into Eurovision has made it to the finals. Although the Finals will be taking place after this Wiki is graded it will be interesting to see how Iceland's "Is It True?" by Yohanna will end up.

Iceland seems to be pretty united behind their contestant, posting on blogs complementing both the song as well as Yohanna's stunning looks, which is important to remember as it is a televised event. One blogger says it best, "A simple and effective song with just the right amount of melancholy without the whole thing tipping into a syrupy mess. Oh .. and she’s naturally gorgeous too. OK, so she’s got a bit of make up on in the video but if you were a postman knocking on her door at stupid o clock in the morning with a parcel to sign for, you just know she’d look a million dollars woken up with a start." - [|The Thoroughly Good Blog]


 * Icelands EUROVISION History:** Iceland made their first appearance in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1986 and have competed in the competition a total of 21 times. In all of their years entering their competition they have finished in the top 10 five times. They have never won the contest but have finished as high as second place in 1999 with the song All Out of Luck, performed by Selma Bjornsdottir. Iceland did not compete in 1999 and 2002, because they didn't qualify due to their performance in each year prior to those two. Iceland's worst finish they have had was last place, which has happened twice in the years 1989 and 2001. Several performers have competed in the contest multiple times. Sigriour Beintsteinsdottir has competed three times for Iceland, which is the most by anyone in their history.

  media type="custom" key="3792557" media type="custom" key="3792593" Source: [|Eurovision]