Georgios Kalpakidis, also known as George Kalpakidis, Gorgi or GK (

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

: Γιώργος Καλπακίδης; born on 27 April 1978 in

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thre ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

), is a Greek

songwriter A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music ...

, former

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transm ...

& TV host, best known for having composed the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest entry for Moldova, " Stay" by Anna Odobescu. He started his radio work at the age of 13 and continued his career in the media field until 2015. He made his television debut as a host on Europe One channel, with a show called "Join Me" and also started appearing as a guest host in several projects over the next few years, on other local stations. His breakthrough came in middle 2006, when a new contract brought him to one of the biggest national networks,

Macedonia TV Makedonia TV ( Greek: Μακεδονία TV) is a Greek private national free-to-air television channel broadcasting from Marousi, Athens and earlier from Thessaloniki, the capital of Macedonia in Greece. It was founded in 1991 by a group of jour ...

. It was during the

Eurovision 2006 The Eurovision Song Contest 2006 was the 51st edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Athens, Greece, following the country's victory at the with the song "My Number One" by Helena Paparizou. Organised by the European Broadcasti ...

period in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh List ...

, where he was given the task to cover the event and report daily on live TV. His "ESC '2006" special, entitled "Hard Rock Hallelujah", was noted as one of the shows with the highest ratings of the year. Kalpakidis has been covering the Eurovision Song Contest as a journalist for radio and TV stations, magazines and newspapers from 2000 until 2008. He's also starred in two horror films in 2009 and 2010, directed by Nick Samaras. His musical steps began in 2003 when he decided to enter an online remix contest. He was the winner of the competition, having scored the maximum points, awarded by the voters who chose his rendition of the original "Adrenaline" by singer Maria Louiza Vasilopoulou (aka MLV). Even though it was announced that the prize would be a collaboration with the artist on her next album, MLV was dropped by her label therefore Kalpakidis didn’t receive his reward. The next year would mark the beginning of a still ongoing course, in the Eurovision Song Contest. Kalpakidis counts several entries in national selections, all over Europe.

Entries in the Eurovision Song Contest

Entries in Eurovision Song Contest Pre-Selections

Participations in other festivals and contests

Further discography

Remixes

Filmography

References