Paula Seling

Paula Seling (, born 25 December 1978) is a Romanian singer, songwriter, record producer, DJ, and television personality. Raised in Baia Mare, she attended Gheorghe Șincai National College and later moved to Bucharest to pursue a career in music.
She has released more than thirteen albums (including three Christmas albums) and over twenty singles, including two top-ten hits in the Romanian Top 100, a minor European hit which entered the charts in Finland and Norway, as well as the UK Singles Chart, and held a good position on "Starcount" the worldwide chart of popularity.
Paula is trilingual and speaks, writes and performs in French, English and Romanian; additionally, she performs in Italian. She has also provided the Romanian voice in "Cars 2", for Holley Shiftwell. She is an outspoken supporter of personal freedom, individual rights and human rights.
Paula represented Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2010, together with Ovidiu Cernăuțeanu, with the song "Playing with Fire". They finished third in the finals. She then participated in Dansez Pentru Tine (Romanian "Dancing with the Stars") where she finished third.
Starting October 2011, Seling was a juror and mentor in the Romanian "X Factor". In 2011 she collaborated with Al Bano and Plan D.
In 2011/2012 she sang a song called "I'll Show You" with Alexander Rybak. The song, written by Rybak, premiered on 30 May 2012.
In 2012, she was chosen by Walt Disney to record the song "My Spirit Flies" ("Chiar pot zbura"), for the Pixar Academy Award-winning animation "Brave".
Personal life.
Paula Seling was born in Baia Mare, a city in North Western Romania, on 25 December 1978. She has a brother named Paul. After graduating from the Gheorghe Şincai National College in June 1997, she studied journalism in Bucharest, graduating in 2002.
She has been playing piano since she was 6 years old, having studied at the "School of Performing Arts" with Mariana Tilca. At the age of 10, she began to sing in the school choir, soon becoming a soloist, and at the age of 15, she joined a band, the "Enders", as a piano player.
Paula has been married to Radu Bucura since 2005, a friend from her teenage years and the drummer in Dana Nalbaru's band. She is a Romanian Orthodox and is also pro-life. She attended the March for Life, in Bucharest, in March 2016.
Career.
In 1995, she won the Best Instrumental Interpreter award at the "Steaua de cristal" (The Crystal Star) Contest in Botoșani, "Ursulețul de aur" (The Golden Teddy Bear) award in Baia Mare, and first place at the "Armonia" (Harmony) Festival in Bucharest. That year she met Paul Nanca of the Phoenix Cultural Foundation and most of her musician friends who are still with her today.
In 1996, she won the "Aurelian Andreescu" trophy under the guidance of Anda Popp and she had her first performance at the "Golden Stag", in the show "Viața de român" (Romanian life) as a backup vocalist.
Then, in the same show, she was invited to sing "When the Winter Comes" as a soloist.
In 1997, she opened for Joan Baez, participated in the Mamaia Trophy with the song "Trurli" a Romanian song, and released her first album in English, "Only Love", recorded at Sound House Records, Germany; then sang in the show "Din darul magilor" (From the Magi's Gift) in December 1997.
Paula Seling competed in the Selectia Nationala 1998 teaming up with band Talisman with the song "Te iubesc". They came in fourth (with 565 points), as the jury voted them on second place and tele-voters put them on sixth place. The special jury considered their song the most suitable for the Eurovision Song Contest 1998.
Seling competed in the Mamaia Festival 2001 with her performance of "Ploaie în Luna lui Marte" (Rain in the Moon of Mars) (a cover of Nicu Alifantis' older hit). Then, she received national recognition after winning the Golden Stag Festival in 2002.
Seling was signed by Roton Records in the fall of 2002, after winning The Golden Stag International trophy. In 2003 she won an MTV Romanian Award for "Best Music Video" for a video which she co-directed. In early 2005 she launched her own record label, "Unicorn Records Romania", along with her father and brother. She has sung duets with Al Bano, Anita Doth (from 2 Unlimited) and Tony Hawks. She has performed as an opening act for Joan Baez (27 June 1997), Chick Corea (9 November 1998), Michael Bolton (7 July 2007), and Beyoncé (26 October 2007). In 2008, she performed a song together with "manele" singer Florin Salam at the Bucharest Symphonic Orchestra. The show host described their performance as a fusion of "manele" and mainstream pop music. The song's lyrics are about ethnic intolerance.
The first step in the world of music.
Paula Seling decided to perform rock, jazz, jazz-rock, soul, and rhythm and blues. At the time, unplugged music was popular so Paula suggested a collaboration with the Phoenix Foundation to create an album.
Dana Cristescu proposed involving Nicu Alifantis in composing and producing this album. Seling offered her some songs and she chose "Ploaie în Luna lui Marte" to be the first track.
Paula remembers ""all the bright eyes looking at me kindly as I was looking out to the audience and hundreds of voices were singing with me "ploouuaaa infernaaaal" and "noooi ne iubeaaam..." it's an amazing feeling. It was nice to see people happy and enjoying my music! ""
The first album and Ploaie în Luna lui Marte success.
The song eventually got to George Zafiu, DJ at Radio 21, who started to broadcast it on his shows." After many requests, Paula's team agreed to record the first album in Romanian named "Ştiu că exist"/ "I know I exist" and "Colinde și Cantece Sfinte" (Christmas carols and Holy songs) with the Romanian singer-songwriter Narcisa Suciu. It represents the best of her musical self study at that time.
At the same time, Paula won the "Ascending Star" award by Avantaje magazine.
On November 9, 1998, she performed at the opening of Chick Corea's concert in Bucharest. The project that came after the concert involving her with the percussionist Lucian Maxim and it was a fusion of jazz with classical music and old Romanian gypsy music found in the traditional remakes of Marius Mihalache.
A new album was ready to be released in 1999, called "De dragoste" (For Love) that gathered ten songs composed by Nicu Alifantis. It is the first complete album that she had released, with songs such as "Almost Silence"/"Aproape liniște"; "The Shadow"/"Umbra"; "How Good That You Exist"/"Ce bine că ești".
Nicu Alifantis influenced her career path. "Ploaie în luna lui Marte" brought her an award "The Hit of the Year" at the Mamaia Festival in the same year. After all this, Paula took a break, while she was trying to find her way in life and in her music. "I wanted to sing but I also wanted to give real attention to the courses I had registered for."
Eventually Seling started to write music and lyrics with her brother, Paul Seling. They started to plan an album that would mark a change in her music, a change of attitude, music and sound.
Performances and music videos.
In January 2001 Paula released "Mă voi întoarce" (I will return), a special album, calm and gentle, with winter songs. The song "Lângă mine" (Next to me), a duet with the band "Direcția 5", more precisely with Cristi Enache was also included in their album.
They worked on the album until the fall of 2001. Paul and Paula succeeded to mostly finalise the album and they decided to include Cezar Stănciulescu and Cristi Ştefănescu, members of the band NSK. The two were excellent professionals to work with. It was the first album in which all the lyrics were written exclusively by Paula. The title of the album was "Știi ce înseamnă (să fii fericit)" (You know what it means (to be happy)), and includes songs like "Promise"/"Promit", one of Paula's most famous songs, that was available in Romanian, and in English, as well. Also in 2001, a truly intense year, Paula released the album " Prima selecție " (First selection), a song collection from concerts, duets and remakes of some of her best songs. In the same period, the teen star, worked with an artist that she found very interesting: Puya from La Familia. They arrived early at the studio where she was recording a song with a strong message and Puya had not found a female vocalist yet. The song seemed very suitable to Paula's abilities and she offered to record it with him.
The song named "Fii pregătit" (Be ready) was released and was very popular so a few weeks later, they were presenting it in a performance in Mamaia. As 2001 ended, Seling received "The Award for the best female singer" at the Awards of the Romanian Music Industries. It was very important, because it proved to her that she was on the right track with her music and performances. After that, Paula also had the opportunity to collaborate with one of the best directors from Romania, Andreea Păduraru, for the music video of the song "Serile verii" (Summer evenings) (of the album "You know what it means"/"Știi ce înseamnă").
Remarkably, the music video was filmed under the water, and at the middle of the video, Paula recites: "We wait, each of us, with our soul leaning onto our bodies and on each of our words/ Our shadows are reaching to the world, to die in the darkness, with terraces, and songs... ". This music video in turn brought Paula the award for the best artist in a Music Video, and the award for the best Music Video on the MTV Music Awards Romania 2002. 2002 meant for Paula's career, the passage to "professionalism".
Later on, Paula thought she was artistically experienced enough to try to prepare herself for the Golden Stag Festival, where she performed two of her songs: "Noapte caldă" (Warm Night) and "That old devil called love". This festival had, in a way, a certain kind of fairy tale fragrance, it represented a step forward towards "professionalism" for the artist, a test for her music career, maybe also because, for many years, she was watching it with her parents, and they were guessing possible winners, awarding qualifications and mainly, she was dreaming.
The event called for two songs to be performed. The first song was only piano and vocal. She walked out on stage with her eyes closed, rehearsing what she had prepared. Paula was a little bit nervous but was very excited. Then she sat on the chair. With determination and "feeling", this girl performed the first few notes ... and nothing. The piano did not work. She felt like crying, she had no idea what to do, she could not believe what was happening. On the day of the contest the piano had decided to quit. Paula was just about to give up when she thought maybe somehow they forgot to turn it on, remembered just in time that there was a power switch. "I reached over and switched it on and I had such an emotional start that it improved my "performance", I made it through and I won the most important award in my life."
Another moment that Paula remembers happening in Brașov was on the day of the festivity, when everybody was full of excitement and pressure, she met a journalist who asked for an interview about the contest. They sat around a table, and, with self-confidence, he told her: "Look: We are going to make this interview work by pretending that you do not know about winning the award..." In that moment all that Paula wanted was to win this award so much but she didn't dare hope she was getting it. She also did not want to find out, not yet, she wanted to hear it when it was announced that evening, while sitting alone with her thoughts and her prayers, in the first row in front of the stage. The evening was incredible, she remembers: " The Scorpions, one of my favorite bands since I was a child, was invited to Brașov to close the Golden Stag Festival with a performance. Well, they invited me on the stage and dedicated the most wonderful song – Still Loving You. At that time, I cried, It was incredible!".
Seling and international collaborations.
The year 2002, was for Seling, an international opportunity indeed: she played herself in the TV series documentary Open House, episode dated 20 February 2002. Also she had a very interesting experience, being a fairy tale character in a story about making a music hit somewhere in the world. Tony Hawks, producer, composer, director and writer wanted to cast a documentary movie on the Discovery Channel, a movie, named "One Hit Wonderland", that reveals the recipe for the success of a song. He picked Paula as a study subject in Romania, they recorded a song, his composition, in his studio from London and then, the city started promoting it.
The whole story took off and they performed it on Gloria Hunniford's show on Channel 5 in London. Then Paula and Tony went to club Kashmir, famous for many British star debuts, where together with her band Paula performed her songs, and the show was broadcast on the internet. A new award came to Paula's treasury, alongside awards at FIDOF international festivals in Cesme, Turkey; Skopje, Macedonia, Valletta, Malta.
2003 year brought Seling a management agreement with a French producer. She worked intensely to compose, orchestrate and record an album for the French market. The album which included songs in French and English was recorded in Paris. Unfortunately, the album could not be finished but Paula got to see France, so all was not lost. In the same year, the singer released the most "consistent" album, so far it had 17 songs and it was called "Fara sfârșit" (Endless). On the same album was the song "Time"(La radio se-anunță ploi)/ Time (Rains are announced on the Radio) for which the music video was shot in Venice by another exceptional director – Dragoș Buliga, and it has 2,297,821 views on YouTube, becoming her emblem song. In 2004 she was nominated for MTV Music Awards as the best artist for the same song "(Time)." In 2005 Paula marries Radu Bucura; and both opened a production studio, "UNICORN RECORDS" where they aimed to create the best quality music.
2005 was a year of celebration, cause Paula celebrated 10 years from her debut. Ten years from her first performance at the Golden Stag Festival 1996. They seemed to pass in a moment and looking back, she felt that each second was great. "Every joy, every tear, every song recorded and every moment of comfort and loneliness had its own role." Paula remembers: "I can especially remember what I felt when the entire audience in the Sică Alexandrescu theatre all sang together with me, with my band and the Orchestra, in the anniversary concert that took place on June 1st 2006, remembering with each song, moments of the past 10 years."
The next year, 2006 was the time for a new album in Paula's opinion. This year ended in a great way, Radu and Paula released a special album called "De sarbatori" /"For Holidays" with traditional Christmas carols and songs that were sacred to Paula.
2007 came with three of the most important events for Paula's career: opening act for Michael Bolton in Brașov on 7 July and for Beyoncé in Cluj on 22 October. The same year she had the pleasure of meeting Anita Doth, a member of the band 2 Unlimited with whom she sang a duet on the stage of Callatis – a festival in a beautiful seaside resort called Mangalia. "It was an amazing experience, I had the chance to know her better, talk a lot, sing a lot and I realised she is a great and warm person, a special and powerful voice." The interesting fact is that they recorded the song together "If you want it" the English version of "Noapte caldă" which she wrote together with her brother back in 2001.
Al Bano chose Paula Seling.
The year 2008 started with a great achievement – Paula had the chance to sing a duet with Al Bano in Iași. Al Bano was definitely a great musician, a special personality, so Paula was lucky to have met him and to have shared the stage with "The Maestro" for five times already, and each time it was a joy and a blessing for her. Later that year Seling and her team, decided to make a "Best of", sort of a compilation with the most important songs of the 10 years of her musical career. It included 19 tracks, some of them with their original orchestration, some of them with a new production, remade in Unicorn Records studio. The album was called "1998–2008".
The same year, on 22 December – very close to Seling's birthday – The National Journal produced an album of her with 23 Holiday songs that sold in almost 100.000 copies in a few hours. That was the best present that her audience could give her that year, for her birthday. Also, in the same year she won 3rd Place Selectia Nationala Eurovision Final with the song "Seven Days".
2009.
Her most recent studio album is "Culeg Vise/Believe", released in 2009. The first single from this album is "Believe" and it reached the top 40 of Romanian Top 100. The official launch of "Believe" was on 10 June 2009 at Silver Church Club, in Bucharest. From August to December 2009 she was on tour in Canada and Western Europe. She attended the 2009 Golden Stag Festival, in September, as a judge, where she met her collaborator Ovidiu Cernăuţeanu.
Eurovision Song Contest 2010.
After the Golden Stag festival, Ovi, who won her vote at the contest, suggested to Seling that they should perform together in the future. She accepted and Ovi called her back in November, inviting her to participate together at the 2010 Selectia Nationala. They re-recorded the original version of the song and signed up for pre-selection. They were selected as a finalist for the Romanian selection show on 27 January 2010 and won the competition on 6 March 2010.
Seling and Ovi performed "Playing with Fire" live in the second Eurovision Song Contest 2010 semi-final, in Oslo on 27 May 2010. They finished 4th in the semi-final and competed in the final on 29 May 2010, where they finished 3rd. This is the second time that Romania had achieved this, its highest placement in the Eurovision Song Contest.
2010: After Eurovision.
Paula and Ovi continue promoting their Eurovision song in Romania and Europe. Seling also planned to release a new album in some time. The duo released another two songs on YouTube: "We got something" and "Counting down".
In 2010, she joined a Romanian dance competition, "Dansez pentru tine" (the Romanian version of "Dancing With the Stars"), with her partner Tudor Moldoveanu. The pair came in 3rd in the competition.
Seling was the co-host of the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 Romanian national final, held on New Year's Eve night on TVR 1, along with Ovi and Marina Almasan-Socaciu.
That night she sang her newest single, entitled "Counting Down". She had also performed the song "Happy New Year" (originally by ABBA) with former Eurovision participants Chiara Siracusa and Niamh Kavanagh.
She was ranked No. 1 in the "Romanian Best Female Voices Alive" top of "Billboard" Romania, advancing one place, because of the death of Mădălina Manole. She is followed by Andra and Nicola.
In February 2011, Seling was named the "Best Female Voice" by the Romanian public. She is followed by Andra and Inna. Also, in the same year, she appears on the cover of a famous Romanian magazine called "InStyle".
New album and "X Factor".
In early 2011 Seling released a new song entitled "I Feel Free". The song features a more groovy sound more common in Romania in later years. The music video was shot in Paris, France. The song has only been sent to certain radio stations and it only gained plays from UTV channel.
In April 2011 Romanian TV station Antena 1 (part of the Intact Media Group) announced that the British—concept reality/musical contest show X Factor will come to Romania as well. In early June it was announced that Seling was to be one of three judges of the contest. Along with Radio DJ Mihai Morar and singer-songwriter Adrian Sînă (frontman of dance, pop band Akcent) she toured Romania all summer long to find those who have The X Factor within them. It was announced that she was to mentor the "Groups" category. She was helped by Alexander Ryback to select the final four acts to enter the live galas in fall 2011.
She elected boy duo Refresh, mix-duo Duo Voice, all-female band X-treme and T&L. The latter got to the semi-final becoming Seling's longest-lasting band in the contest. On Christmas Day which is also Paula's birthday, she performed a mix of her hits "Timpul" and her rendition of the Christmas carol "Colindăm, colindăm... (Iarna)" from Romanian folklore. She left X Factor Romania after just one season.
Seling recorded duets with Alexander Ryback, Ovi and Al Bano in late 2011 to be put together alongside "I Feel Free" and another at least eight songs on for a new album due in 2012. In February 2012 it was announced that Seling will be returning to Selectia Nationala 2012, in order to represent Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012. Despite this, she said the song she prepared for the contest wasn't ready and promised a comeback for Eurovision Song Contest 2013.
She was the spokesperson for Romania and presented their votes during the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2012. In 2013 she was selected to be the endorser for a notorious Romanian moisturising cream, Gerovital, a product with edelweiss-rich extract, in a green-white combination of colours, without preservatives. Also, a new enhancer to Paula's image, was when the famous brand "Loncolor", proposed to Paula to become their endorser in 2012, the celebrity representing LONCOLOR enVogue 535, a good choice of hair shade for every woman.
Eurovision Song Contest 2014.
On 1 March 2014, Paula Seling and Ovi won the Romanian National Selection 2014 and were selected as the Romanian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in Copenhagen with the song "Miracle".
Seling and Ovi performed "Miracle" live in the second Eurovision Song Contest 2014 semi-final, in Copenhagen, on 8 May 2014. They qualified from the semi-finals and competed in the finals on 10 May 2014 and finished 12th.
On 24 May 2014, Paula Seling was awarded most beautiful entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in the internet poll by Eurovision blog Wiwibloggs. Paula obtained about 30,000 votes in the poll, becoming "Eurovision Next Top Model 2014". On the second place there was Irish Kasey Smith, and on the third Dutch Ilse DeLange. She also won the award in 2010.