Alexander Rybak biography
Date of birth : 1986-05-13
Date of death : -
Birthplace : Minsk, Belarus
Nationality : Norwegian
Category : Arts and Entertainment
Last modified : 2012-01-03
Credited as : Singer, Eurovision winner, Violonist and pianist
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Rybak has been a student at the Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo since the age of 10. Due to his success in the Eurovision Song Contest, he is currently taking a break from his bachelor's degree studies at the Institute. In 2004, Rybak was awarded the Anders Jahre Culture Prize.
Having already taken part in Norwegian Pop Idol in 2005, Alexander took part in the second edition of the talent search Kjempesjansen, a Norwegian TV show that is looking for young talents in music and dance, in 2006. He could win this show with his own composition Foolin’.
He later won the Anders Jahres award and became a conductor for Norway’s most famous orchestra of young musicians. In 2007, he starred as fiddler in the Jerry Bock/Sheldon Harnick musical Fiddler on the roof in Oslo.
In 2009, Alexander took part in MGP 2009, the Norwegian national final for the Eurovision Song Contest. He qualified from the semi final and could win the national final by a landslide. At that time, Fairytale was already the number one in the Norwegian charts and it was therefore the first MGP entry ever to top the charts before the final was held.
To date, the single has sold to multiple platinum and after its victory in Moscow, it became a hit all over Europe. He gained the top score of all 9 voting districts, ending with a combined televote and jury score of 747888. The runner up received a combined score of 121856.
He ended up winning the Eurovision Song Contest with a record points tally of 387,the highest tally any country has achieved in the history of Eurovision—with "Fairytale", a song he wrote and composed. His debut album, Fairytales, charted in the top 20 in nine European countries, including a #1 position in Norway and Russia.
On January 30, 2010, Rybak performed one of his new singles, "Europe Skies", in national final, Euroviisut 2010, to select the 2010 Finnish entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 2010. On March 12, 2010, Alexander Rybak performed his Eurovision 2009 winning song "Fairytale" on UK TV show Eurovision: Your Country Needs You. In April 2010, Rybak released a new song, featuring Opptur, called "Fela Igjen".
Alexander released his second album on June 14, 2010, called No Boundaries. It was not as successuful as his first album, so far it has peaked at number 7 in Norway, number 8 in Sweden and 32 in Finland. On January 7, 2011, Rybak was one of twelve contestant on the next Swedish season of the dancing show Let's dance (Swedish version of television franchise Dancing with the stars), in the show Rybak danced to win the competition against other Swedish celebrities. Rybak made it to the Top 4 before being voted off on March 11, having received the lowest scores from both juries and the voting public.
Album:
- Fairytales - 2009
-No Boundaries - 2010
-Visa vid Vindens Ängar - 2011