Marija Serifović

Marija Serifovic in Moscow, 2009

Marija Šerifović ( Serbian - Cyrillic Марија Шерифовић ; born November 14, 1984 in Kragujevac ) is a Serbian singer . She became known to an international audience by winning the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 in Helsinki .

biography

Training and beginning of the music career

Marija Šerifović was born in 1984 in Kragujevac as the daughter of Verica , a well-known folk singer , and Rajko Šerifović. On November 27, 2013, she came out as gay. Her parents discovered her musical talent at an early age, and at the age of twelve, Šerifović made her first public appearance with Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You . As a very young teenager she recorded a cover version of the legendary Yugoslav pop song Moje bube (Kad 'sam umorna i besna) by the group Suncokret , in a duet with her mother. A few years later she had her first major TV appearance on the show Za milion godina, on RTV Pink . This was the first time that it was noticed by a wider audience. In the show, well-known evergreens were interpreted by singers, which were then mutually rated. Serifović won on a show with the song I Learned from the Best by Whitney Houston .

She attended the music college and studied business administration . In 2003 she began her professional singing career with the release of her first solo album Naj, Najbolja . At the same time she took part in the music festival Pjesma Mediterana in Budva , which she won a year later with the title Bol do ludila , which placed in the regional charts.

In the summer of 2005, Marija Serifović 's single Agonija was released, a cover version of the title I Believe It (Olo lipis) by the successful Greek singer Despina Vandi . In the same year she took part in the Serbian pop music festival Beovizija , the preliminary decision of Serbia and Montenegro (now Serbia) for the Eurovision Song Contest 2005 . There she took 7th place with the song Ponuda . In 2006 she won the Serbian radio festival (Radijski festival) with U nedelju , where she was honored with a special prize for her interpretation. In 2006, Šerifović released their second album with Bez ljubavi .

Victory at the Beovizija and the Eurovision Song Contest

Marija Šerifović in the final of the ESC 2007

In spring 2007, the single Bez tebe was released, and on February 21, Šerifović held her first concert in front of 4,000 spectators at Belgrade's Sava Centar .

A few weeks later, on March 7th and 8th, she returned to the Beovizija Festival, which, after the independence of the former state of Montenegro, also organized a purely Serbian preliminary decision for the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 (ESC) for the first time . She performed the ballad Molitva (German: "The Prayer"), composed by Vladimir Grajić and written by Saša Milošević. First of all, on March 7th, she was able to secure one of the ten final places in the semifinals among twenty participants and on March 8th she was able to secure the majority of audience calls and the second place of the jury in the final. In the final analysis it was significantly (22 points) before the group Balkanopolis (17 points), to qualify for the ESC semi-final on May 10 in Finland meant Helsinki.

The victory in the Serbian preliminary round was followed by a promotional video, a documentary about the preparations of Šerifović for the European singing competition and a promotional tour through Bosnia and Herzegovina , Croatia , Macedonia , Switzerland and Greece . Molitva was also recorded in English ( Destiny ), Finnish (Rukoilen), Russian (Molitva) and in three dance versions. At the international betting shops, the Serbian singer was traded as the favorite for victory alongside Verka Serduchka from Ukraine and the Belarusian Dmitri Koldun and was able to place in the ESC semi-finals among the ten most popular titles, which meant moving into the final two days later . There Šerifović won with 268 points ahead of Ukraine (235 points) and the Russian girl group Serebro (207). It was the first time a country won the first time. Serbia had already participated as part of Yugoslavia or Serbia-Montenegro before, but it was the first participation as an independent state. In the semifinals too, Serbia was in the top position, ahead of Magdi Rúzsa from Hungary . Molitva was the first ballad to win since 1996. Likewise was Molitva the first winning song since 1991, which contained not a word in English and Marija Šerifović was the first to sing again in mother tongue in the winning lecture her song.

After winning the Eurovision Song Contest, RTS gave a reception in Belgrade City Hall for Marija Šerifović and her entourage. Although the reception was given the evening after the victory and everything was organized within a very short time, over 70,000 people spontaneously gathered in front of the town hall. It had also completely spontaneous, a Roma - marching band gathered to welcome the Euro Vision Team Molitva played. Marija Šerifović sang from the balcony of the town hall together with her background singers Molitva in different versions for the crowds. The honor of such a reception has so far only been given to top athletes.

2007 was also the year in which the EBU introduced the so-called Winner Tour. In order to better promote the winning title, the winner will travel to different countries in a private jet provided , where he will appear on television programs and give interviews. As part of this tour, Marija Šerifović toured Denmark , Spain , Sweden , the Netherlands , Greece and Germany .

After the ESC 2007

On December 5, 2007, Marija was appointed European Ambassador for Intercultural Dialogue by the European Commission.

In the Serbian presidential election campaign in 2008, however, she openly stood up for Tomislav Nikolić , the candidate of the nationalist and EU-critical Serbian Radical Party (SRS). After her victory in the Eurovision Song Contest, various political sides had tried to use her victory for political purposes, but until the presidential elections she had always distanced themselves from it. That is why her advocacy of Nikolić, combined with a bitter criticism of the EU-friendly candidate Boris Tadić expressed in an open letter, caused astonishment. The team of authors from Molitva, Vladimir Graić (music) and Saša Milošević (text) objected to Marija's behavior because she sang the song during the presidential election campaign at party meetings of the SRS. However, Graić and Milošević did not want the song to be associated with politics. After the elections she distanced herself from the SRS and claimed that she never actively supported the party in the election campaign. She is not a member of the SRS and would never join it. Serifović said she didn't understand politics and never wanted to get into it. She would only have sung at the meetings because the SRS would have fulfilled some of the promises made to her beforehand.

After the ESC, Marija Šerifović had many press duels with the public television service RTS . She complained about the allegedly bad preparations for her participation in the ESC 2007. Among other things, she complained that her RTS did not want to finance a video clip for Molitva and had otherwise organized little PR material. She expressed displeasure because she had not been invited to the starting order draw on the occasion of the ESC 2008 in Belgrade and instead Željko Joksimović sang. She angrily rejected statements from the RTS that it was not customary and mandatory to invite the winner to the draw and that she would have her appearance at the ESC. Šerifović's manager Saša Mirković was banned from the house by Aleksandar Tijanić, the managing director of RTS . The dispute culminated in Mirković's announcement that Marija Šerifović would give a free concert for her fans from home and abroad at the same time as the ESC in Belgrade. A surprising turn occurred on February 7, 2008, when Šerifović and Tijanić met for a discussion, she publicly apologized, and a contract for further cooperation was signed. However, Šerifović's manager Saša Mirković has been excluded from this collaboration.

Marija told the Tanjug news agency on March 3, 2008 that there had been more and more disagreements with Mirković. Since they did not come to a compromise, they would then have "civilized" parted. Šerifović also believed that the strategy for her international career urgently needed revision. After much press speculation , Marija announced on April 22nd, 2008 at the PR party for her new album Nisam anđeo that her new manager was Raka Marić.

Molitva on the charts

Despite the success at the Eurovision Song Contest, Molitva was initially only released as a single on the ESC 2007 annual sampler and only in a few countries outside of the Serbo-Croatian-speaking area, for example neither in Germany nor Austria. It was only released as a single in German-speaking countries on July 27, 2007. In Sweden, the title rose to number nine in the single charts on May 17, 2007 , although the title was not yet on sale, but only achieved this due to the downloads . In Switzerland, the title rose to number 19 in the charts on May 28, 2007.

Further career

In 2009, Šerifović was invited by Swedish television to participate as a juror in the Swedish preliminary round for the ESC. At that time she also lived in Sweden and Denmark, where she was working on an English-language album, which will be released for the Warner Music label for the international market. In December 2009 their album Anđeo was released, which is intended for the ex-Yugoslav market. To the surprise of many, Marija took part in the reality show Farma . According to media reports, she is said to have received a fee of € 100,000 for participating. Šerifović did not leave the farm until the beginning of April, which meant that her concert in the BeoArena, which was scheduled for April 15, 2010 , had to be canceled because there was too little time for the necessary rehearsals. Other sources say that too few tickets were sold and that postponing the concert to May 11, 2010, hoped for better sales. The concert was held as planned, but the demand remained below expectations. According to very different press reports, the number of visitors was between 7,000 and 10,000, although the BeoArena can accommodate significantly more visitors.

Discography

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Singles

Molitva   CH 19th 05/27/2007 (2 weeks)

Albums

• 2003: Naj, najbolja
• 2006: Bez ljubavi
• 2007: Molitva ... Best Of
• 2008: Nisam anđeo
• 2009: Anđeo
• 2010: Andjeo
• 2010: Marija Šerifović - Platinum Collection
• 2014: Hrabro

Singles

• 2005: Ponuda
• 2005: Agonija
• 2007: Bez tebe
• 2007: Molitva

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.telegraf.rs/jetset/888120-ispovest-marije-serifovic-oprastam-ocu-sto-nas-je-maltretirao-ali-ne-zaboravljam
2. ↑ Cf. The favorites of the betting offices at eurovision.de (May 11, 2007) ( Memento of the original from June 4, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Semi-final results of the ESC 2007 ( Memento from May 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), eurovision.de (English)
4. ^ Andrej Ivanji: Song contest for Serbia . In: Der Standard, 2./3. February 2008.
5. ↑ Nikad radical! (Never radical!) Pressonline.rs, February 8, 2008.
6. ↑ Marija Šerifović pisala Tadiću (Marija Šerifović wrote to Tadić), B92, January 28, 2008.
7. ↑ Tužba za "Molitvu" (lawsuit against "Molitva") pressonline.rs, February 6, 2008.
8. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from July 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated June 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
10. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from April 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
11. ↑ http://www.glas-javnosti.rs/clanak/reflektor/glas-javnosti-13-04-2010/marija-serifovic-farma-me-je-usporila
12. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
13. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
14. ↑ http://www.novosti.rs/code/navigate.php?Id=15&status=jedna&vest=178835&title_add=Aplauzi%20Mariji&kword_add=marija%20serifovic%2C%20koncert%20u%20beogradu
15. ↑ Charts CH

Web links

Commons : Marija Šerifović  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Video interview with José Ferreiras about the person Marija Šerifović and CD plans. (German)
• Marija Šerifović at Discogs (English)