The twenty-sixth artist in our Who Is series for the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 is Gjon’s Tears from Switzerland.
Gjon Muharremaj (better known as Gjon’s Tears) was born on 29th June 1998 in Fribourg, Switzerland, and is of Kosovar-Albanian descent. His singing career took off when he was just 12 years old, when he placed third in Albania’s Got Talent, after his grandfather had entered him in the contest. He then went on to reach the semi-finals of Switzerland’s Got Talent in 2012, and last year also reached the semi-finals of The Voice France.
“Répondez-moi” was selected from a selection of 515 songs. A 100-member audience panel and a 21-member Eurovision panel selected Gjon as the Swiss representative for Eurovision 2020. It was written by Gjon himself, along with Xavier Michel, Alizé Oswald and Jeroen Swinnen.
Xavier and Alizé form the duo Aliose, who finished second in the Swiss national final in 2011. Jeroen co-wrote “Me and My Guitar”, the Belgian entry for Eurovision 2010. It is the first Swiss entry since 2010 to be in French and also the first Swiss entry since 2010 to feature lyrics in any of Switzerland’s four official languages.
Gjon’s Tears will perform in the second half of the second semi-final on 14th May.
Switzerland hosted the first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956 a contest that they won. Lys Assia won the first contest with the song “Refrain”, it wasn’t until 1988 that Switzerland would win the contest again. At the contest in Dublin, it was Celine Dion with “Ne partez pas sans moi” who beat the United Kingdom to victory by just 1 point. In 2019 Luca Hänni brought Switzerland their best result at the Eurovision Song Contest in 26 years. The singer who performed “She Got Me”, finished 4th in the Grand Final.
