Maria Haukaas Storeng, a Norwegian pop singer born on August 3, 1979, in Finnsnes, Norway, first gained widespread attention in 2004 after competing on the television program Idol and later served as her country’s entrant at the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest. Her stage experience began at age 11 with a role in a Norwegian musical version of Annie, after which she took part in further productions of The Wizard of Oz, Fame, Hamlet, and Hair. That same year she placed sixth on the second season of Idol, the Norwegian edition of Pop Idol, finishing behind winner Kjartan Salvesen. Shortly afterward she issued her first commercial single, the Top Five hit “Breathing,” under the mononym Maria. The full-length album Breathing appeared on Oslo Recordings in 2005, climbed to number 13 on the Norwegian albums chart, and yielded the follow-up Top 20 single “Should’ve.” A standalone release, “Nobody Knows,” surfaced the next year. In 2008 she captured the Melodi Grand Prix, earning the right to perform “Hold on Be Strong” for Norway at Eurovision, where the entry reached fifth place in the final; the track subsequently topped the Norwegian singles chart and entered the Swedish Top Ten. The accompanying album Hold on Be Strong, also issued in 2008, peaked at number three in Norway. The following year Storeng joined Swedish singer and actress Anna Sahlene for a Melodifestivalen performance of Roberta Flack’s 1970s soul classic “Killing Me Tenderly,” which became a Top Ten hit in Sweden upon its commercial release.
