Upper Austrian Kaleen sings at the ESC - her grandmother is no stranger

The 29 year old Marie-Sophie Kreissl will represent Austria at the 68th Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö. The ORF announced this on Tuesday in the Ö3 alarm clock. In May, the artist wants to move into the final of the world’s largest music competition on May 11th for her home country with the still secret up-tempo number “We Will Rave”. “It will be a techno-inspired, very fast pop number that is easy to dance to,” promises the Upper Austrian in an interview (see below).

Even though the singer, who comes from Ried im Traunkreis, does not yet have a long history of releases, she is almost an ESC veteran who has worked behind the scenes for the mega event in several roles since 2016 – be it as Stand-in lead artist during rehearsals, as a dancer in the interval act or as creative director at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.

This is what Kaleen sounds like:

World champion dancer

Above all, the trained singer has been successful as a dancer to date, as she can point to more than 100 national and European championships as well as five world championship titles. As a choreographer, she also worked for formats such as the ORF casting show “Starmania”. The stage business is probably just in Marie-Sophie Kreissl, Kaleen’s real name, as she comes from a show family. Her grandmother is the folk music scene star Hanneliese Kreißl-Wurth (“Steirermen san very good”), who was born in Mondsee, while her father also produced a lot.

Picture gallery: Austria’s song contest hope 2024: This is Kaleen

Kaleen (Photo: ORF/Rankin) Bild 1/7

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Kaleen – “Taking Chances”:

In any case, ORF program director Stefanie Groiss-Horowitz was also pleased with the choice via broadcast: “With Kaleen, we are sending an artist to the song contest who is a real hit.”

When exactly Kaleen will compete for Austria in May will be decided on January 30th. Then the starting places for the 1st semi-final on May 7th and the 2nd semi-final on May 9th will be drawn. A total of 37 countries are taking part in the Swedish port city of Malmö this year, after Loreen won with “Tattoo” in Liverpool last year.