Great balls of fire …

It’s not every day that you get to interview one of the biggest icons in contemporary Norwegian culture, but as I’ve said many times, sometimes this job in nothing less than fantastic. Bring out the confetti and fireworks, great balls of fire, it’s the one and only Alexander Rybak!

And that is exactly how you feel when you see and meet Alexander, simply known as “Alex” to his friends. And yes, he really is as cute and charismatic in person as he appears on stage, with a smile that would melt any frozen heart.

Recently, at the reopening of Minnekirken, the Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church in Chicago on April 24, I got to sit down and have a relaxed, down-to-earth conversation about his amazing career, his current activities, and what he has to look forward to in the future.

“Fairytale”

Until 2009, Alexander Rybak was relatively unknown on the world stage, but that all changed when he won the  Eurovision Song Contest  in Moscow. Representing Norway, he swept the competition with 387 points, the biggest win for any contestant in the voting system in place at the time. He was only 23, making him the youngest male winner, and he did it all performing a song he composed himself, “Fairytale.”

I remember Rybak’s triumphant return to Oslo after his win, grateful that I had arrived at Gardermoen Airport one day earlier. I was happy to have escaped the throngs of fans there to greet him, although I was curious as to who this magnificent creature might be. He was all over Norwegian  media with his irresistible smile, over the moon with his success, his own real-life fairy tale.

If you have never seen Rybak’s Eurovision performance of “Fairytale,” it’s worth having a look and listen on YouTube. For the  young artist, somehow everything came together with this performance, and it’s hard not to be drawn in by his musical wizardry.

He had written the song about a lost love (a real-life story) in about a day, but by the time it made it to the performance, several months of work went into the production.

At first, Rybak was worried when he learned that he would not be able to play his violin live at the Eurovision competitions, that the instrumental musical track would have to be pre-recorded. But in the end, it was the requirement to pre-record his violin performance that allowed the young energetic artist to defy gravity and bedazzle his audience, as he played his fiddle in positions otherwise unimaginable. The vocals were still live, infusing even more energy, and then there were special visual effects—pure magic.

The song “Fairytale” was an immediate sensation, and Rybak’s debut album “Fairytales,” was soon in the top 20 in nine European countries, hitting the top of the charts in Norway and Russia. Overnight, he became a  teen idol at home and abroad.

I asked Alexander (we were quickly on a first-name basis) what it was like to end up on top of his game so early in his career.

“I was young and thought the world was the way it was supposed to be,” he said and laughed. “I was an only child, very spoiled. It was all about practicing and getting applause; it was about entertainment. There was more of life to come …”

An immigrant success story

Alexander Rybak was born in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, in 1986. His parents, Igor and Natalia Rybak,  were both musicians, his father a famous violinist in the Minsk Chamber Orchestra, and his mother a piano teacher and music journalist.

But life was not easy in Belarus, which was still behind the Iron Curtain dividing Europe at the time. The Soviet regime was suppressive, both in terms of personal and artistic freedom. When his father was presented with the opportunity to defect while on tour in Oslo in 1991, he took the risk to find a better life. He was hidden on the estate of a prominent musical family on the exclusive Nesodden neighborhood. He managed to survive searches by the Soviet secret police, and, with time, he was granted permission to live in Norway. He became a private music tutor for the children of his sponsoring family and remained on their large estate in Nesodden.

But Igor Rybak had no intentions of abandoning his family in Belarus. Alexander shared how his father lived an extremely frugal life during the first years alone in Norway, saving as much of his salary as possible in hopes of bringing his wife and son to Norway. Eventually, the Rybak family was reunited in Oslo, where Igor and Natalia now have their own  home in Nesodden.

As a child, Alexander was immersed in the world of classical music, and his parents recognized his talent early on. At age 5, the prodigy received instruction in both piano and violin. He thought he would go in for piano, but early on, his parents realized that violin was to be his instrument.

Alexander continued his musical education at the prestigious Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo already at the age of 10. But while his instruction in the classical repertory was pivotal to the development to his technique as a violinist, his taste in music proved to be more eclectic. Today, he plays across all genres—classical, folk, jazz, and pop—with unparalleled artistry on his instrument.