Emmelie de Forest

Rumored to be the great-granddaughter of the 19th century U.K. monarch Queen Victoria, folk-pop singer/songwriter Emmelie de Forest claimed victory at the famed Eurovision Song Contest in May 2013. Born in Randers, Denmark to a Swedish father and Danish mother, de Forest accumulated several years of singing and conducting experience after joining the Steve Cameron Gospel Choir. At age 14 she encountered the Glaswegian folk artist Fraser Neill—a Danish resident since the mid-'90s—at a festival in Ajstrup, after which the pair spent the following five years performing in small venues and ultimately sold roughly 100 copies of their self-pressed album, Emmelie de Forest & Fraser Neill. Though the duo relocated to Copenhagen in 2012, they ceased performing together so that de Forest could devote additional time to studies at the city's Complete Vocal Institute. In January 2013 she competed in the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix, the event that ultimately dispatched her to Malmö, Sweden as Denmark's entrant in the Eurovision Song Contest final. Issued by Universal a week prior to her triumph, Only Teardrops featured the pipe and drum-fueled winning title track and climbed to the Top Five on the Danish album charts.