Jostein Hasselgård (born 1979) was thought to have limited possibility to win in the national finals of the Eurovision Song Contest, but he took the country by storm with his laid-back yet genuine performance and during the tele-voting there was never any doubt who was going to be that evening’s winner. In the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 he brought Norway to a fourth place.
Jostein comes from the small town of Fredrikstad just outside Oslo. He displayed musical talent at an early age and started to play the piano when he was six years old. He has trained in most musical genres and in recent years has sung at various concerts in the southeastern part of Norway.
Last year Jostein took a year off from his studies at the prestigious Royal Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo to focus on his career as an artist, in addition to working full-time as a kindergarten teacher.