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Guess who’s back, back again?

Last time we explored which of this year’s lead artists have been involved before in the Eurovision Song Contest. However, one of the drivers of Six on Stage is to highlight the contributions of backing performers, so it’s time to look at which of the class of 2024’s other performers – dancers, backing vocalists and people dressed in bird costumes – have been involved before.

Once…

Seven backing performers have each had one previous appearance at Eurovision.

Three of Sweden’s dancers – this year’s Melodifestivalen house dancers, in fact – have taken part previously: Daniel Koivunen for Russia in 2011 (he was on a treadmill with Robin Bengtsson in the national final but didn’t go to Eurovision), and both Pauline Eddeborn and Kim Pastor for Malta’s Destiny in 2021.

Aiko’s off-stage singer Nikol Držmíšková performed the same role for We Are Domi in 2022, while Saba’s backing vocalist and Sand co-writer Melanie Wehbe was on stage with Michael Rice in 2019. Íris Hólm Jónsdóttir, who you’ll be surprised to hear is part of Team Iceland, previously did backing vocals in 2015 alongside Hera Björk.

The other dancer to have appeared once before is Jesse Wijnans, returning for Finland one year after doing the Cha Cha Cha with Käärijä.

Twice…

Three people have had supporting roles on two previous occasions – one of them as a winner.

Erasmia Markidi is providing backing vocals for Greece, having done so in 2017 and 2019. The fourth Melfest house dancer, Kenny Lantz, is finally on stage for Sweden – he previously danced alongside other Swedes for Cyprus’s Tamta in 2019 and for Switzerland’s Remo Forrer in 2023.

And returning from 2016’s winning team is Oleksandra Makarovska, once again singing for Ukraine, as she also did last year.

Four times…

Pamela Bezzina, a singer and vocal coach who has taken part as a contestant in Malta’s national final numerous times, is this year providing backing vocals for them for a fifth time.

She was on stage (as then required) in 2010, 2011 and 2016, and also part of the team in 2016 and 2018. In 2014, instead of singing she took part as a member of Malta’s professional jury.

Seven times!

Victoria Chalkitis is making her eighth appearance at Eurovision with off-stage backing vocals for Cyprus. She’s also serving as Silia Kapsis‘s vocal coach.

Victoria is an incredibly experienced backing vocalist, with those seven appearances stretching right back to 1993, when she sang for the first time for Greece. She joined them again in 1994 (alongside her father, Harris Chalkitis), 2008, 2012 and 2018.

She was part of the onstage team for Belarus in 2005 and would have sung vocals for Moldova in 2020 if the contest hadn’t been cancelled – she ended up supporting Natalia Gordienko in 2021 instead. Like Pamela Bezzina, she has been a national juror too, for Greece in 2022.

With a gap of 31 years once she’s sung for Cyprus next week, Victoria is second only to Ralph Siegel (34 years) as the performer with the longest gap between their first and most recent appearance at Eurovision.

Twelve times!

An update to this blog post as another backing singer has come to light who immediately knocks Victoria off the top stop: the legendary Dea Norberg! Dea performed backing vocals for Austria, now the fifth country she has represented at Eurovision after her native Sweden, Malta, Azerbaijan and Australia (for Dami Im!).

It’s fitting she returned the year we celebrate the 25th anniversary of Take Me To Your Heaven as that was her first, victorious, appearance on the Eurovision stage. Returning this year moves her up to 5th in the table of longest gaps between first and last appearance, and moves her to joint 4th in the list of most countries represented.

She remained 3rd behind only brothers Georges and Michel Costa for most songs performed at Eurovision with 13!

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Which of this year’s acts have been involved before?

The class of 2024 have been selected and their songs confirmed with the EBU – but not all of them are newcomers to the Eurovision Song Contest. Seven of the artists taking part this year were already part of the Six on Stage database from a previous contribution.

1. Hera Björk

By some margin the best known to Eurovision fans is Hera Björk from Iceland. As well as representing her character as singer and co-writer with Je Ne Sais Quoi in 2010, she has provided backing vocals on multiple occasions (2008, 2009 and 2015) and been a vocal coach. She also came close to representing Denmark in 2009 with Someday.

2. Natalia Barbu

Our other returning artist this year is Moldova’s Natalia Barbu, who also performed Fight for Moldova in 2007.

3 & 4. Zaachariaha Fielding & Michael Ross

The duo Electric Fields are another fan favourite, coming to prominence in 2019 when they finshed second in Australia Decides with 2000 and Whatever. While they are finally representing Australia this year, their success in that national final saw them announce the Australian jury’s 12 points in 2019.

5 & 6. Marcus Gunnarsen & Martinus Gunnarsen

Although they’re flying the flag for Sweden this year, twins Marcus & Martinus are Norwegian and it was for Norway that they revealed the jury scores in 2017, when they were just 15. (We’re going to have to do another post about the times a country had more than one spokesperson…) Earlier the same year they had performed an interval act during Finland’s national final.

7. Raiven

Raiven took part in the public selection for Eurovision three times in Slovenia and this year finally makes it to Malmö via internal selection. But back in 2018 – between her second and third attempts – she was chair of the national jury and, unanimously with her colleaogues, gave her top score to Dance You Off.

An honourable mention too to Kaleen from Austria, whose previous roles have included being a creative director at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, acting as an artist stand-in during Eurovision rehearsals, and being a dancer and choreographer for interval acts in 2018.



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Who’s had the most Eurovision roles?

There are lots of roles at the Eurovision Song Contest and plenty of people have taken on more than one – not least every songwriter who’s delivered their own song on stage. But who has performed the most roles at Eurovision?

First, some caveats. We’re talking about people representing their country. There are lots of roles at Eurovision beyond this – in TV production, website and social content, stage management, etc. But when it comes to countries’ participation, Six on Stage identifies the following specific roles:

  • Lead artist – the credited singer or group for an entry
  • Backing performer – dancer, backing vocalist, puppeteer – anyone performing an entry on stage who’s not the lead artist
  • Songwriter – you’ll see this broken down into composers and lyricists on song pages (and where that information isn’t available we list credited writers as both), but for this analysis we’re considering the role of writer as a single one
  • Jury member – someone who has been a member of a country’s professional jury
  • Spokesperson – someone who has announced the country’s scores (or, in the current format, their jury’s 12 points)
  • Host – slightly different as it’s not linked to any entry and only the host country provides these each year, but we record this not least because so many hosts have also been involved in other ways
  • Other – we’ve started trying to note creative directors, choreographers, stylists… This is pretty much unlimited and dependent on suitable sources so is never going to be complete. That’s why it’s a generic “Other” category.

Lots of people fall into three or four of these categories as it’s common for a singer-songwriter to also serve on their country’s jury and sometimes be a spokesperson too, but two people in the Six on Stage database fall into five categories.

Germany’s Stefan Raab has a long history with the Eurovision Song Contest and that’s reflected in the number of roles he had between 1998 and 2011. He was his country’s named artist in 2000 with Wadde hadde dudde da?, which he also wrote; he wrote and was a backing performer for Max Mutzke‘s 2004 entry; he wrote the legendary Guildo Hat Euch Lieb and turned up to “conduct” the orchestra (who weren’t playing); and finally in 2011 he was one of the Contest’s hosts in Düsseldorf.

The only person who can match this is Slovenia’s Lea Sirk, and arguably her six roles count more strong as they don’t include hosting. Her first involvement was actually in 2012 as a jury member before going on to provide backing vocals for Tinkara Kovač in 2014 and ManuElla in 2016. She’s best known for her own entry in 2018, Hvala, ne!, which she also co-wrote, and returned a year later to reveal her country’s jury scores.

Now if Stefan could come back and sit on Germany’s jury or Lea could host for Slovenia, they could complete the set…