Željko Joksimović was born on April 20th 1972 in Belgrade. The years of growing up and education bond him with Valjevo, a place from where he went to test himself in the world of music, and where he always returned as a winner. He started being involved in music very early. He won his first prize as "First Accordion of Europe" at the age of 12 on the prestigious music festival in Paris. He completed the Music Art Academy in Belgrade graduating as one of the best students. He started his professional career in 1997 when he released an album produced by record label PGP-RTS (National Radio & TV Serbia). In the midd – nineties (1993, 1996, 1997) he had many accomplishments on the “Belgrade spring” festival as a composer. His success on the “Song of Mediterranean” festival in Budva 1998, with the composition “The song of sirens” (interpretation award) gave him the possibility of participating on two prestigious international festivals in Belarus, in the cities Mahilyow and Vitsyebsk. In the year 1999 he won the Gran Prix on both festivals. The last years in the nineties he spent composing music for the theater plays, like “Mandagora”, “Ljubinko and Desanka”, “The slave of love”, “On foot”, “I don’t have money, I won’t pay”… The turning point of his work as a pop - soloist was releasing his album (for City records production) in 2000. Results of his work were more than obvious. His first album was proclaimed best-selling album. In years to follow Željko will remain in the very top of Serbian music. Numerous awards following his first album proved his quality and persistence. The turning point in his career is considered to be Željko’ s winning the national contest for Serbia and Montenegro’s representative on “Eurosong” 2004 with his song “Lane moje”. After very long time, Serbia and Montenegro once again had their representative on this prestigious European contest. Winning 2nd place on the “Eurosong” contest in Istanbul and THE MACEL BEZENCON Press award (Best Composer Award) made him way to the top of the European music scene. This success changed the course of his career. This turning point gave a special tone to his musical opus and the songs he made after 2004. Željko’ s cooperation and duet with the Austrian singer Tamee Harrison “I live my life for you” made great success throughout Europe. In December 2005 his last released album was a fantastic success and was sold in more than 800 000 copies. This album represented a great quality improvement in Željko’s work. In that period Željko tried himself as a film music composer. In cooperation with “Cobra production” he composed music for the movie “Ivko’ s slava” (“Ivkova slava”). His great accomplishment on “Eurosong” 2004 was repeated in Athens 2006, when his musical piece “LEJLA” , written for Bosnia and Herzegovina’ s representative – “HARI MATA HARI” band, won not only 3 place on the contest, but also the prestigious best composer award (COMPOSER AWARD 2006), assigned to Željko by all composers who participated on the festival. In 2007 in front of an audience of 18.000 Željko Joksimović performed all of his hits in the Belgrade Arena. In 2008, Željko Joksimović composed a song that will once again be performed by Jelena Tomašević in the Serbian national final for Eurovision song selection, Beovizija 2008, which is called “Oro”. The song, a ballad, represented Serbia in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest in Belgrade. On March 24, 2008 it was announced by the 2008 Eurovision organisers RTS that together with Jovana Janković he will host the Eurovision Song Contest, giving him two roles in the contest. Today, Željko is one of few musicians that can play more than 14 musical instruments.
