Lisa Andreas
Lisa Andreas, born 22 December 1987 is an English-Cypriot singer from Kent. At age 16, she represented Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest 2004 and came fifth with her performance of "Stronger Every Minute". She was the youngest artist taking part in the competition that year.
Her father is English and her mother Greek Cypriot. She was born in England but christened in Cyprus. She lived in Nicosia for two years as an infant, but returned to Britain after her grandfather had health problems. She was always an active and outgoing girl, who at the age of 11 surprised herself and everyone who heard her when she took to the stage at a local pub on Karaoke night.
Having discovered her voice, she hasn't looked back since. More Karaoke followed, which led to Lisa taking part in a competition at the Strand in Gillingham, in which she took first place. Singing became more and more important to Lisa as she went on to perform at various concerts and road-shows giving her talents to support such good causes as Children with Leukaemia, and she performed in a concert at the Red Cube in London to raise funds for the New York disaster fund for the September 11th attacks.
Battling her way through the minefield which is a music industry career Lisa has worked her way up, from performing in fields of mud, in the pouring rain, where half of the audience wore their own home grown woolly coats, bleating along to the music to working alongside such performers as Atomic Kitten and Damage at much higher profile venues. She has also been a popular performer in the Pride concerts such as Leicester Pride, Manchester Europride and with an audience of more than 25,000 at the Cardiff Mardi Gras
Lisa has also worked with the Kent Police by performing to her peers at Snap shows in Kentish schools.
Lisa's Cypriot heritage came to the fore in 2004 when at aged just sixteen years old on 22/12/03, Lisa, now an angelic beauty with "powerful lungs", (as Terry Wogan would say) came from nowhere to beat the other 10 participants for the right to represent Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest 2004, proving that racy costumes and raunchy dance routines were not necessary to do well in the competition. She was the youngest artist taking part in the competition, and came in 5th place with the song "Stronger Every Minute" an emotional power-ballad which gave Lisa a chance to show off her amazing vocals and a maturity beyond her years and her placing in 2004 has given Cyprus the chance to participate in the finals for the 50th Eurovision Song Contest 2005, without having to take part in the initial heats.
Later, the performance was used by the organisers EBU to prove this fact, after criticism that the show was too focused on performance only. Andreas was the only person onstage for her performance and was likened by one broadcaster to a young Barbra Streisand.
Since December 2004, Lisa has split from her previous management and is enjoying her singing career. In addition to all the excitement of the Eurovision she has successfully passed all ten of her GCSEs, with good grades and is busy developing her own material, writing and co-producing her own songs.
She appeared at the Eurovision night Stockholm Pride festival in the summer of 2004, where she took the show by storm as she entered the stage singing her song 'Stronger Every Minute' silencing the Pride park as they listened to her enchanting voice. Although so young she is a confident and polished performer on stage and her aura reaches out to make a special direct contact with her audiences as usually only the most experienced artists can do. This all rounded performer has also danced at Her Majesty's Theatre in London in March 2005.
Last December Lisa visited Cuba for a very special family occasion, celebrating her 18th birthday on the Caribbean island
On 22 February 2006 Lisa was back in Cyprus, performing in the Cyprus finals of Eurovision 2006 for special celebrations commemorating the 25 years which Cyprus takes part in the Eurovision competition.
She successfully auditioned for the judges in the fourth series of British TV series The X Factor, being put through to the second round.
Eurovision Song Contest 2004 Semi-Final - Istanbul
Entry for Cyprus
Performer: Lisa Andreas
Song title: Stronger Every Minute
Song writer(s): Mike Konnaris
Song composer(s): Mike Konnaris
Sang in Position: 14
Final Position: 5
Total Points: 149
Eurovision Song Contest 2004 GRAND-FINAL - Istanbul
Entry for Cyprus
Sang in Position: 21
Final Position: 5
Total Points: 170
Ten lucky countries had qualified from the semi-final: Serbia & Montenegro, Ukraine, Greece, Albania, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Malta, Croatia and FYR Macedonia. These countries were to meet the strong opposition of the 14 already qualified countries: Turkey, Sweden, Germany, Spain, Russia, France, the United Kindom, Poland, Romania, Iceland, Austria, Belgium, Ireland and Norway. They would all sing on the impressive Istanbul stage which was built bearing in mind the motto of the 2004 contest, Under The Same Sky.
After a few countries had given their votes, it was clear that the winner would be from a three horse race including Ukraine, Serbia & Montenegro and Greece. These three contestants had also been hotly tipped by the press and the fans. Ukraine's Ruslana was the one to achieve this goal with her song Wild Dances. She had been on an extensive promotional tour in lots of European countries before the contest, which could have contributed to her victory. The already qualified countries in the Final didn't do significantly well: Nine of these entries ended up bottom-10 and only Turkey, Sweden, Germany and Spain made it to the top-10.
The 2004 Eurovision Song Contest Final was not only shown in the 36 participating countries, but also on television in Armenia, Kosovo, Puerto Rico, Australia and in the USA; For the first time, a DVD would be released shortly after the event including both the Semi-Final and the Final.
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