71 Facts About Alexander Rybak

Alexander Igorevich Rybak or Alyaksandr Iharavich Rybak is a Belarusian-born Norwegian musician and actor.

Alexander Rybak is best known for his involvement in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Since then, Alexander Rybak has been involved several times in the contest.

Alexander Rybak represented Norway again in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal, with the song "That's How You Write a Song", winning the second semi-final and finishing in 15th place in the final.

Alexander Rybak performed as an opening act for the 2010 final and as an interval act in 2012 and 2016.

Alexander Rybak has frequently provided commentary on the contest, and worked as a journalist in 2011, and as a judge on the Belgian national finals in 2016 and 2023.

Alexander Rybak was born in Minsk, which at that time was part of Soviet Belarus.

Alexander Rybak's father lived with a musical family who gave him shelter and food in exchange for violin lessons for their son.

At the age of five, Alexander Rybak began to play piano but eventually picked up the violin as his main instrument.

Alexander Rybak stated "I always liked to entertain and somehow that is my vocation".

Alexander Rybak became a student at the Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo at the age of 10.

In 2004, Alexander Rybak was awarded the Anders Jahre Culture Prize at the annual culture festival in Madrid, Spain.

In 2006, Alexander Rybak won Kjempesjansen, a talent competition hosted by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, with his own song, "Foolin".

Alexander Rybak has collaborated with artists such as a-ha's lead singer Morten Harket and Arve Tellefsen.

In 2007, Alexander Rybak played the fiddle in Oslo Nye Teater's production of Fiddler on the Roof and won the Hedda Award for this role.

Alexander Rybak won the 54th Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow, Russia, with a record 387 points, singing "Fairytale", a song inspired by Norwegian folk music.

The song was composed and written by Alexander Rybak and was performed with the modern folk dance company Frikar.

Alexander Rybak later won the Eurovision final with a landslide victory, receiving votes from all the other participating countries.

Alexander Rybak finished with a total of 387 points, breaking the previous record of 292 points scored by Lordi in 2006 and scoring 169 points more than the runner-up, Iceland.

Alexander Rybak went on a tour in Norway with former Norwegian Eurovision winner Elisabeth Andreassen, something that had been decided before his Eurovision win and participation.

EMI Norway has just released a film entitled Fairytale: The movie, directed by acclaimed Norwegian director Rune Langlo, documenting the journey of Alexander Rybak since claiming the top prize for Norway in Moscow.

On 30 January 2010, Alexander Rybak performed one of his new singles, "Europe's Skies", in the national final, Euroviisut 2010, to select the 2010 Finnish entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 2010.

On 12 March 2010, Alexander Rybak performed his Eurovision 2009 winning song "Fairytale" on UK TV show Eurovision: Your Country Needs You.

On 8 June 2010, Alexander Rybak released the first single from his second album "Oah".

Alexander Rybak recorded and released a Russian version of this song called "Strela Amura".

Alexander Rybak released his second album on 14 June 2010, called No Boundaries.

On 7 January 2011, Alexander Rybak was one of twelve contestants on the next Swedish season of the dancing show Let's Dance, in the show Alexander Rybak danced to win the competition against other Swedish celebrities.

Alexander Rybak released a Christmas album on 23 November 2012 entitled Christmas-tales.

Around the same time, it was revealed that Alexander Rybak wrote a song for Norwegian singer Annsofi for Melodi Grand Prix 2013.

Alexander Rybak recorded a song for the 2014 How to Train Your Dragon 2 soundtrack, entitled "Into a Fantasy".

Alexander Rybak had sent in the track unsolicited to film company DreamWorks, which was charmed by the song and decided to include it in the soundtrack for the closing credits.

Alexander Rybak took part in The Hit, a live TV show on Norwegian broadcaster NRK on 10 October 2014.

Alexander Rybak performed "What I Long For", a song written by Elisabet Mjanger.

Alexander Rybak wrote two entries for national selections for Eurovision in 2015.

Alexander Rybak wrote a song for Maltese singer Franklin Calleja titled "Still Here".

The result led to great controversy and Alexander Rybak critiqued the jury for putting the entry fifth.

Alexander Rybak later declared that radio DJs refused to play the song as they felt it was a childish song and some DJs were asking Alexander Rybak for financial compensation for playing it.

Alexander Rybak initially struggled to find a publisher for this, as most publishers were only interested in the physical book.

In early 2016, Alexander Rybak was a one-off jury member in Eurosong, Belgium's selection for Eurovision 2016.

Alexander Rybak performed as a part of the interval act for the Eurovision Song Contest 2016, in a musical number satirizing Eurovision songs.

That same year, Alexander Rybak marked his ten-year anniversary as an artist by re-releasing former singles such as his debut single "Foolin'" and "5 To 7 Years".

Alexander Rybak sang "Fairytale" during the final of You Decide, the preselection of the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017.

That same year, Alexander Rybak teamed up with German singer and violinist Franziska Wiese and had a duet with her on his singles "Fairytale" and "Kotik", while performing the former at the annual Schlagerboom festival.

Alexander Rybak released his own version of the song, including self-written English lyrics.

In January 2018, it was revealed that Alexander Rybak would be taking part in the Norwegian national selection Melodi Grand Prix 2018, to represent Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal, with the song "That's How You Write a Song".

Alexander Rybak stated that he wanted to take part mostly for pleasure, rather than wanting to win the competition, stating that Norwegian singer Jahn Teigen, who participated fourteen times in the Norwegian selection and won three times, was his inspiration.

Alexander Rybak was not the bookmakers and experts' favourite to win the selection, but topped several public polls ahead of the competition.

Alexander Rybak proceeded to the last four, where he first beat Aleksander Walmann in a duel and then proceeded to the final duel with singer Rebecca, which he won.

NRK denied this, pointing to the voting statistics that showed that Alexander Rybak had won with a large margin.

Alexander Rybak was drawn to perform first in the second semi-final on 10 May and finished first overall, becoming the first-ever Eurovision performer to win two semi-finals after he won the second semi-final in 2009.

In 2020, Alexander Rybak co-wrote an entry for Melodi Grand Prix 2020 together with Jowst for singer Magnus Bokn called "Over the Sea".

Alexander Rybak was set to appear as part of an interval act at Eurovision 2020, which was later cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alexander Rybak's "Fairytale" finished 3rd in Wallonia's Votre top 20,17th in the Netherlands's NPO Radio 2 Songfestival Top 50 list, and 6th in the United Kingdom's special Eurovision: Come Together show.

Alexander Rybak was convinced to attend Columbia by Kubilay Uner, director of the film music composition MFA program.

Alexander Rybak performed at the final of Malta Eurovision Song Contest at the MFCC in February 2025.

Alexander Rybak is often classified as having a tenore di grazia voice.

Alexander Rybak has been noted multiple times for having a strong natural vibrato in his voice.

Alexander Rybak's voice has been appreciated for creating whole and clear sounds.

Alexander Rybak did not visit his country of birth for 17 years between his emigration to Norway and his first performance in Belarus in the summer of 2009.

In 2012, Alexander Rybak met his half-sister for the first time in many years.

Alexander Rybak bought a new apartment and lived at Aker Brygge.

Alexander Rybak speaks Norwegian, Russian, and English fluently, and has performed songs in all three languages.

Alexander Rybak has performed in Belarusian and, with Elisabeth Andreassen, in Swedish.

In 2010, Alexander Rybak was featured in the media negatively after a few incidents of uncontrolled anger.

Alexander Rybak later stated he had to learn to say "no".

In 2018 and 2019, Alexander Rybak struggled a lot with an unidentified illness, which led him to cancel several performances.

In October 2019, Alexander Rybak declared he was hypochondriac, stating "all people above 20 have their own battle with something".

Alexander Rybak started working in a group for his children's musical Trolle og den magisken fela has helped him.

In May 2020, Alexander Rybak revealed that he had been addicted to sleeping medications and antidepressants for 11 years, and had begun to recover after entering rehab in January.

Alexander Rybak began attending Columbia College Chicago virtually from his home in Norway in fall of 2020, and subsequently moved to Chicago to continue his studies in person by August 2021.

Alexander Rybak graduated from Columbia in July 2022 and has lived in Los Angeles until 2024, when he moved back to Norway due to "a very persistent stalker" in the US.