🇭🇷 Noelle:”I turned my hobbies into a business and a lifestyle”

Ahead of Dora 2024 kicking off on February 22nd, Jazzi had the chance to speak with Noelle about her participation in the national final. Noelle will be singing the song “Baby, Baby” in the first semi-final of Dora.

Hi Noelle, I would just like to start things off by asking you to introduce yourself?

Hello everyone, my name is Ivana Crnković and I live and work in Osijek – Slavonia region. Noelle is an artist name that I chose at the beginning of my music career, a little bit over three years ago. In this way, I wanted to separate the private from the business. Likewise, I thought that Noelle was an interesting and unusual name that would generate additional interest from the audience. By profession I am a dancer, choreographer, dance pedagogue and the owner of the dance studio „Illusion”. I can say that my whole life is dancing and singing, in fact one big game and enjoying what I love most in life. I turned my hobbies into a business and a lifestyle. Because of that I am extremely happy and satisfied with my life.

Before we continue, let’s start with a quick icebreaker by just asking if there is one thing about yourself that not many people know about?

Nowadays everything is on the internet and I don’t think there is anything hidden or secret about any artist, including me. If anyone is interested in anything, Google knows everything. After this interview, I am sure that everything that is important about me and what belongs to the domain of my singing career, will be well known.

For international Eurovision fans, this will be the first time they will get to know you, could you please tell us a bit more about yourself?

Music has always been an indispensable part of my life and believe me, I could not imagine my life without music. With my father, a professional musician, I was literally surrounded by music since birth. In our house various genres were played, from classical music to heavy metal. However, somehow during puberty, the RnB sound slowly stood out and became my favorite choice. It somehow got under my skin, which I believe can be heard in all my songs.

My first entry into serious musical waters happened 13 years ago with the group Alibi from Zagreb. It was a short but pleasant episode in my life. After the breakup of the Alibi group, I returned to Osijek and started my dance career with my dance studio Illusion. I realized very quickly that I could not dance and sing at the same time on a high level. I had to decide how and which way to go. The choice fell on dance, to which I devoted myself professionally and with 100% commitment. I think it was the right decision and the successes of my dance studio Illusion at numerous international competitions prove it. However, the desire for singing and a singing career was simmering in me all the time and it had to surface once. That finally happened three years ago with my first song “Halo”.

Can I start off by asking, what made you want to participate in the Croatian Eurovision selection?

The Croatian song selection for the Eurovision Song Contest – Dora, is the most prestigious and important musical event of the year, which is followed by extremely high public interest, both domestically and internationally. Your questions are confirmation of that. If there is no Dora today, there wouldn’t be any of your questions either. For me, as a relatively new singer, it is a great opportunity for promotion and presentation to a wide audience. I believe that after Dora, far more people will know about Noelle and maybe start following my work and listening to my music. That makes me very happy.

You will be participating with the song “Baby, Baby”, what the song is about and what would you like the audience to feel when listening to it?

The inspiration for the song Baby Baby is of course love, which has always been an inexhaustible source. Many people will recognize themselves in it, because unfortunately it is often the case that in a relationship or in a marriage, a love between two people turns into a routine, and love falls into the background. Then we all ask ourselves “is the love gone” and wish to feel the passion from the beginning of the relationship again, even at the cost of being hurt. The song has a great groove and I think that’s it’s biggest asset. I hope the audience will feel it and dance along with me.

When I am sending this, we are only a few weeks away from the first semi-final of Dora 2024. How are the preparations going for that?

Preparations for Dora occupy most of my time and are going their own way, although I experienced a little discomfort at the very beginning. I planned to hire top dancers from abroad, but everything failed due to the organizer’s decision that no foreign citizen could be on stage. After the initial shock, I quickly came up with a new plan and now we are working hard to implement it. I hope that my performance will be interesting and will attract the attention of the audience. I will have dancers from my Illusion dance studio on stage with me. I hope that the audience will be satisfied with my performance and give me their votes.

What would it mean for you to win Dora and represent your country at Eurovision?

Of course, I would be very happy and proud if I represented Croatia at the Eurosong. However, I am realistic and stand firmly on the ground. Something like that belongs to the domain of science fiction for now, ha, ha. Believe me, winning Dora is not on my mind at all. I am completely focused on my performance in the semi-finals of Dora. Entering the final would be a huge success for me and maybe equal to victory. Many renowned and established singers and stars perform at Dora, so it will be very difficult, but I’m not losing hope. That is my goal and I hope to achieve it. I am convinced that the audience and the expert jury will know how to choose the best song and performer who will represent us at the Eurovision Song Contest. In any case, whoever it is, I will be an ardent fan.

Moving onto Eurovision, what are your earliest memories of the contest, Do you have any favourite songs? Either from Croatia or from any other country

Eurovision has always been a big spectacle and has always been in the focus of the public, I have followed everything that happened at that competition since I was a child. I remember a lot of songs from the Eurovision Song Contest. From recent history, my favorite is Loreen and “Euphoria”. Among the Croatian songs, Doris Dragović and “Maria Magdalena” are still unsurpassed for me. Otherwise, you won’t believe it, for me “Waterloo” is the best song from the Eurovision Song Contest of all time and a timeless hit. I’m always happy to listen to it and it always totally cheers me up. I don’t feel like that song is that old at all. As if it was created 15-20 years ago, not 50 years ago. Real evergreen.

I can see from your Instagram that not only are you a singer, you are also a dancer and choreographer, has that experience in any way helped prepare you for Dora 2024?

Of course, this is of great help to me, because it gives me the opportunity to express myself additionally through dance and enhance the effect I want to achieve with the song. It is very important to match the dance movements with the melody in the right way and achieve the desired drama. On the other hand, it is also an aggravating circumstance for me, because people have very high expectations of me because of it. Even sometimes too big, so I’m afraid of disappointing them because I’m certainly not Wonder Woman. Singing and dancing at the same time, at a sufficiently high level, is very difficult and demanding, and dancing without air loss is absolutely impossible. That is why it is especially important to harmonize breathing with singing and make sure that the quality of the vocal performance is not lost. I believe that I will succeed and that my performance will go well and be remembered for good.

You have a few songs on your Spotify other than “Baby Baby”, are there any other songs in your discography that fans of “Baby Baby” should go listen to?

The song “Halo” was my first independent single and immediately a big success and pleasant surprise. Not even in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that “Halo” would achieve that. Neither I, nor my writing team Hit Factory, had high expectations, even though we knew we had a great song. We hoped to enter the official chart and that was our main goal. Instead, the song went to #1 on the chart and became a big hit.

For the first single of a new and until then completely unknown artist, no one could have expected it. That this success was not accidental, the confirmation came from the world competition “International songwriting competition” (Nashville, USA), where “Halo” was selected for the semi-finals in a competition with more than 20,000 songs received from all over the world , mostly in English. For a song in the Croatian language, it is an exceptional success. Also, I must highlight the last year song “Bye Bye”, which spent five weeks in a row on the 1st place of the national chart HR TOP 40. It is another confirmation that my career is slowly going in the right direction. The performance at Dora is just another important step forward on that demanding path.

What is one thing that you have learnt from taking part in the national final, that you will take with you going forward?

Every big competition provides an opportunity to learn something new and thus progress. Although I have a lot of experience from major international dance competitions, I learn something new every time. Dora is a spectacle that requires complete dedication and professionalism, so that everything is as it should be and as I imagined. From scenography, framing, costuming, stage performance, all this requires a lot of attention and effort. I believe that the experiences I will gain will be of great use when I qualify for Dora next time and maybe fight to go to the Eurovision Song Contest. I am young and there is still a lot of time for that, so I hope that my dream will come true one day.

Thank you for this opportunity, and good luck in Dora 2024, Is there anything you would like to say to the International viewers over at That Eurovision Site?

I would like to thank everyone for following Dora and their comments. It’s always good to hear what the audience thinks, because they are the ones we create songs for. Without a happy and satisfied audience, our work would have no meaning. All this helps us a lot and provides guidelines for further work. In the end, I want to greet everyone and invite them to definitely follow Dora and if they like my song and my performance, to vote for me. Once again thank you all and a big kiss.

Who is Noelle?

Noelle is a singer, dancer and Choreographer from Croatia. Noelle’s musical career started back in 2021 with her single “Halo”. As Noelle mentions in this interview the single was a massive success for her. Since “Halo”, Noelle has released multiple singles her most successful being her single “Bye,Bye”.

Croatia’s Eurovision Journey

Croatia has been a part of the Eurovision family since 1961, as part of Yugoslavia. Ten Croatian artists went on to represent Yugoslavia in the Contest – the most famous of which being Riva, who gave Yugoslavia its only win in 1989. The 1990 Contest was held in Zagreb as a tribute to their Croatian heritage.

Croatia debuted in the Contest as an independent nation in 1993 with the band Put and their song “Don’t Ever Cry”. Since then, Croatia has gone on to score as high as 4th place in 1996 and 1999. For 2023, Croatia chose the well-known band Let 3 to represent the nation in Liverpool with their song “Mama ŠČ!”. Performing in the first semi-final, Croatia qualified for the Grand Final for the first time since 2017. In the Grand Final, the band finished in 13th place, with a total of 123 points – 11 of which coming from juries, whilst another 112 came from the televote.

What did you think of our interview with Noelle? Could she return Croatia to Eurovision glory? As always, let us know what you think by commenting below. Also, be sure to follow “That Eurovision Site” on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,Threads, BlueSky and Tiktok as we gear up for Eurovision 2024!

News Source: That Eurovision Site

Photo Credit: Marko Dzavic & Tomislav Silovinac