Tonight: Second Australian act in Eurovision final?

On Tuesday, Australia qualified for the Grand Final of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest. Tonight, it is possible that one more act from Down Under reaches the final. Anja Nissen takes part on behalf of Denmark.

Anja Nissen was born in Winmalee, New South Wales in Australia to Danish parents. Her mother and father emigrated to Australia when they were 11 and 22 years old, respectively. Nissen grew up on her parents’ farm in Winmalee with her older sister and brother.

In 2008, Nissen reached the semi-finals of Season 2 of popular talent-search TV show, Australia’s Got Talent, aged 12. Since then she appeared on a number of TV shows. These included Young Talent Time, Mornings with Kerri-Anne and the annual Schools Spectacular. In 2014 she won the third series of The Voice of Australia.

Afterwards she was asked by SBS Australia to go to Eurovision in 2015. In the end, SBS chose for Guy Sebastian instead. Afterwards Anja tried her luck in Denmark (the country her parents are from). In the DMGP final, she narrowly lost out to boyband Lighthouse X, which left her “heartbroken”, according to ESC Daily’s reporter Brandon McCann.

Anja Nissen’s Eurovision dream comes true

This year, she gave Eurovision another try in Dansk Melodi Grand Prix 2017. And with her song “Where I am” she won the Danish ticket to Kiev. She told ESCDaily at that moment that it felt incredible for her to be “on the other side of a dream”.

In Kiev, initially Anja’s outfit received much more attention than any other aspect of her performance. Reactions to the dress were negative, and so Anja and the Danish delegation decided to send it back to Denmark. The classy red dress from the national final returned, and from that moment on, Anja Nissen received nothing but praises for her rehearsals.

During last night’s Jury Show, Anja even received a magnificent 4 star rating from our editors Steef van Gorkum and Neil MacInnes. These ratings were based on how high juries will rate the Danish performance. It could therefore well be that Anja Nissen reaches the Eurovision Grand Final tonight and will have a chance to compete against Isaiah Firebrace from Australia!