Happy Eurovision month to everyone. In that time last (and all the previous ones) year, all the delegations arrived (or at least they were busy packing) to Tel Aviv when Eurovision Song Contest took place. This year we’re unfortunately staying at home, due to the Covid-19, but we’re anyhow surrounded by the great Eurovision content, especially if we want to. And therefore – we have to find another reason to celebrate, even though we have to do it from home. It was a special day yesterday, for someone in the Eurovision family, who has done a lot for an Eurovision community. We’re saying Happy Birthday to Martina Majerle.

Martina Majerle was born on the May 2nd, 1980 in Opatija, Croatia – she is a Croatian singer of mixed Croatian and Slovenian descent, who has been performing at the Eurovision stage on the eight occasions. On her anniversary we’re about to remember all of her Eurovision attempts, both as backing singer as well as the main artist to date.

Croatia 2003 – Claudia Beni – Više Nisam Tvoja (as a backing vocalist)

Martina Majerle first appeared on the Eurovision stage in 2003, when composer of ‘Više Nisam Tvoja’, which later won Croatian national selection Dora, Andrej Babić, invited her to collaborate on the song as the backing singer. Song achieved 15th place in the Grand Final.

Slovenia 2007 – Alenka Gotar – Cvet z juga (as a backing vocalist)

The second time that Majerle appeared on the Eurovision stage was four years after her debut as a backing singer. Andrej Babić composed Cvet z juga, entry, which was given to Alenka Gotar, at that time unknown Slovenian soprano singer, who later won the Slovenian national selection, EMA 2007, and qualifed to the Grand Final for her homeland, for the first time ever. At the end Slovenia ended up at 15th place in the Grand Final.

Montenegro 2008 – Stefan Filipović – Zauvijek Volim te (as a backing vocalist)

The year after Martina Majerle was invited to collaborate as a backing singer for the Montenegrin artist, Stefan Filipović, who won MontenegroSong 2008 with the song ‘Zauvijek volim te’. Song was composed by Grigor Koprov and Vladimir Dojčinovski. It was performed first in the first semi-final, but failed to make it to the final. Their result was 14th in the Semi-Final 1.

Slovenia 2009 – Quartissimo feat. Martina Majerle – Love Symphony (as a lead artist)

2009 was the year, which brought Martina at the front part of the stage. As she confirmed in one of the interviews, a composer of the song ‘Love Symphony’ composed a song as a complete instrumental. But in the Eurovision rules, instrumental songs cannot compete without a singer singing at least a little part of the song. Andrej Babić and Aleksandar Valenčić invited Majerle to sing on this track, and therefore they’ve won the EMA 2009, Slovenian national selection with ‘Love Symphony’. They won the right to represent Slovenia at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009 with the song Love Symphony, but failed to qualify for the final.

Slovenia 2011 – Maja Keuc – No One (as a backing vocalist)

Martina Majerle returned to the Eurovision stage after two years, this time with Maja Keuc, who won Slovenian national final, EMA 2011, with a first – Slovenian version of song, ‘Vanilija’. Keuc’s song was composed by Matjaž Vlašič and Urša Vlašič, and Martina Majerle was invited again to sing the backing vocals. The song ended up 3rd in the semi-final, and 13th in the Grand Final and it still remains as the most succesful song for Slovenia in 2010’s.

Slovenia 2012 – Eva Boto – Verjamem (as a backing vocalist)

In 2012, RTVSLO selected its entrant via different format of a national selection, called Misija Evrovizija, which could be compared to Got Talent, Idol etc. After 13 shows, 16 – years old Eva Boto won with a track Verjamem, which was written and composed by Vladimir Graić (composer of winning 2007 entry, ‘Molitva’) and Igor Pirković. Majerle was invited again to do backing vocals on that performance. Slovenian entry ended only 17th in its semi-final.

Montenegro 2014 – Sergej Ćetković – Moj Svijet (as a backing vocalist)

After six years, Majerle was again invited by RTCG, Montenegrin broadcaster, to support Sergej Ćetković and his entry ‘Moj Svijet’. It was internally selected to represent Montenegro at the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in Denmark and also the first song from the country which made it to the Grand Final, ending up 19th. Montenegrin entry that year was composed by Sergej himself, together with Emina Jahović.

EMA 2015 – Martina Majerle – Alive (as a main artist)

Majerle also tried to represent Slovenia at the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest, and applied her power ballad ‘Alive’ to the RTVSLO. A song, which was written and composed by Andrej Babić and Branko Berković, has been selected to the live shows, but it didn’t win.

Croatia 2016 – Nina Kraljić – Lighthouse (as a backing singer)

A year after she tried to represent Slovenia at the Eurovision stage again, she received a call from the Croatian broadcaster HRT, and accepted their invite. Croatia was back in the contest after two years of withdrawing, and successfully qualified to the Grand Final, where Nina Kraljić ended up 23rd. That was also the second time, after 13 years, that she collaborated with her own, Croatian broadcaster. Nina Kraljić’s Eurovision entry was composed by Andreas Grass and Nikola Paryla.

In that editorial we wanted to honour Martina Majerle, who has done a great job in the Eurovision community in the past years. Happy Birthday and thank you, Martina – and see you on the Eurovision stage someday, again.