Iceland and Hera Björk have been eliminated in the semi-finals of the 2024 ESC Championship

Hera Björk Þórhallsdóttir already has a lot of experience with ESC. 14 years after her performance with “Je ne sais quoi” in Oslo in 2010, she again represented Iceland in the competition, but was eliminated in the semi-finals.

Titled “Scared Of Heights,” Hera Björk won the Icelandic Söngvakeppnin Prize for the second time – a show that is the ESC’s initial decision. However, in 2024, the competition was separated from ESC for the first time; Only more than a week later, Icelandic television confirmed that Hera Björk was participating in the ESC. In the Söngvakeppnin Super Final, she triumphed somewhat surprisingly against Palestinian favorite Bashar Murad and his nickname “The Wild West”. Now Hera Björk has been allowed to return to where she belongs: on the ESC stage!

Hera Björk has a lot of experience in singing and ESC

Hera Björk, born in 1972, works outside the theater as a real estate agent in Reykjavik. However, she can look back on having a long career in show business. In 2000, she released the first of her four solo albums. Before that, she hosted the Icelandic TV show “Stutt í spunann” from 1999 to 2000 and sang in musical productions. In between she toured Iceland with her band 17 Velar. In 2004 she moved to Copenhagen to lay the foundation for her second career at the Complete Voice Institute there. Hera Björk has worked as a singing teacher throughout Europe for years.

A weak point for the Eurovision Song Contest

Even before her ESC debut with Iceland “Je ne sais quoi” (“That's for sure”) In 2010, Hera Björk appeared on the international stage twice. In 2008 in Belgrade she sang in the background choir of Euroband. She took on the same task in the Icelandic production in 2009 and directed it Johanna took second place. There wasn't much missing and she would have celebrated her first show as a soloist at Moscow's ESC. Hera Björk competed in the Danish preliminary round in the same year and narrowly missed out on placing second with her song “Someday”. In 2013, she won the Viña del Mar Festival in Chile, one of the most important music festivals in Latin America, in relation to Iceland. In 2015, Björk once again returned to ESC as a background singer – this time Maria Olafsdottir. In 2019, she tried again to get a title in Iceland, but did not reach the final there.

Despite being a fan favorite, “Je ne sais quoi” only reached number nineteen

Hera Björk from Iceland has been delighting international ESC fans since 2010.

Over the years, Hera Björk has gained a good reputation among ESC fans. She has appeared at many large and small ESC events and also hosted the biggest party: Eurovision in Concert 2016 in Amsterdam. Her contribution to Oslo 2010 laid the foundation for this global fame, and the title “Je ne sais quoi” was the first to bring her luck. In the first semi-final in Oslo, Hera Björk easily qualified for the final in third place. But then the lights went out for their Eurodance tally: Belgium's eight points were the most emotional, and with a total of 41 points, Je ne sais quoi settled into 19th place.

More information

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