Tuesday 17 April 2012

ESC 2012, semi-final 2 - The Netherlands

Ayten Kalan (April 2 1990, Rotterdam) is a Dutch singer, better known by her stage name Joan Franka. Her late father was Turkish, while her mother is Dutch. Joan Franka will represent the Netherlands at the Eurovision Song Contest 2012. She became famous in the Netherlands after her participation in the first series of the talent show, The Voice of Holland.

In September 2010, Joan Franka entered the talent show, The Voice of Holland where she auditioned with Nickelback's song How You Remind Me.

In the Battle round, she was put against Yvette de Bie. They both sang One Of Us" and Joan was kept to move to the live shows with Yvette being eliminated. In the first live show, Joan sang Jewel's Foolish Games and in the third live show Marc Cohn's Walking in Memphis and in fifth live show Beverley Craven's Promise Me when she was eliminated.

Two of the songs she sang during the competition charted as minor hits in the Dutch Singles Chart. Foolish Games reached #42 and Promise Me #45 based on downloads.

On February 26, 2012, Joan battled against her former fellow The Voice of Holland contestant Raffaëla Paton on the first round of Nationaal Songfestival 2012 and advanced to the final round where she was eventually chosen to represent the Netherlands at the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan. Despite coming last with the jury vote of 11 points she led the televotes with 26.1 points which resulted in her victory. Her song for the contest, You and Me, was released in the Netherlands on February 27, 2012 as a Music download on iTunes.


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