- At this year's edition of the Eurovision contest, won by Lena Mayer Landrut from Germany, Turkey ranket second and Romania reached to the third position, represented by Paula Seling and Ovidiu Cernauteanu.
Paula Seling began studying piano at the School of Arts in Baia Mare, at the age of 10 started playing in the school choir and soon became soloist. Afther this there was a period of national piano competitions, choral music festivals and competitions. In all this time, after some successes she gained some experience and confidence.
At 15 years old Paula Seling joined the Popular Arts School and became member in a band called Enders, as a keybords instrumentalist.
Enders disbanded because most of the members finished high school and entered to college. From that point she started her journey alone and gained some achievements. In 1996 she won the "Aurelian Andreescu" trophy. In the same year she was on the stage at the Golden Stag Festival in Brasov, making for the first time back voice. In this show she was invited to perform only one song, "When the Winter Comes".
1997 came with many events: the opening recital for the Joan Baez concert in Bucharest, the baccalaureate examination, the Mamaia Trophy and the first album recorded in english, "Only Love".
In 1998 Paula Seling had many questions. She desired to sing rock, jazz, jazz-rock, soul or R&B, but was aware that she could not do all of that. In the same year she opened the concert for Chick Corea at Bucharest.
In 1999 released the album named "Love", with ten songs by Nicu Alifantis.
In January 2001 she released a special album, "I will return", with winter songs. 2003 brought to her a management contract with a french producer. For two years she worked to the composition, orchestration and the recording of an album for the French market with songs in French and English.
In 2003 Paula Seling also released the most "consistent" album, with 17 songs. The name of the album is "Endless" and one of the songs included is "Time", with a video made in Venice by Dragos Buliga, an oustanding director.
In 2005 she married Radu Bucura. Both of them opened a production house called Unicorn Production.
Now, in 2010, ranked third at the Eurovision contest, with the song Playing with Fire, performed with Ovidiu Cernauteanu. He studied at the School of Music from Botosani, his hometown.
Ovidiu Cernauteanu, known also as Ovi Martin or Ovidiu Jacobsen is a Romanian singer settled in Norway from 1995. He was born in Botosani in Romania and he studied at the School of Music from there.
At eight years, he went for the first time on stage and since then he knew that he wants to make music.
In school he was a "disaster" at math, so a career in exact sciences was excluded.
I had a ritual. I was singing in my room and i was influencet by the fact that my father had a band, told Ovi in a statement some time ago. Even if his father was not thrilled that his son is passionate about music, his mother supported him and included him on the participants list in the contest Flowers of love from Focsani. At 14 years old he already had a trophy.
For Ovi the second home became Bucharest after he graduated primary school. He sang in those times in a band at the former Dorobanti Hotel and the most exciting experience for him was the one year tour in Japan,
In Norway he went after signing a contract and he likes all the pople from this country because they are polite and very receptive to the new trend in new music.
Actually he lives in the Stavanger town, known also as the capital of oil. He loves all the spectacular Norwegian landscapes, fjords and musical industry. He does not like the traditional rotten fish (ratten Fisk) and the weather.
In the last four years he took seriously and made the album This gig almost got me killed. For the song Playing with fire, besides Paula Seling reached to the third position in the Eurovision contest and hes career reached to another level.
