Pia Maria Außerlechner (born 21 May 2003), who performs as Pia Maria, is an

Austrian Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen, see Austrian nationality law * Austrian German dialect * Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ...

singer. She represented at the

Eurovision Song Contest 2022 The Eurovision Song Contest 2022 was the 66th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Turin, Italy, following the country's victory at the with the song "" by Måneskin. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and h ...

alongside DJ

Lumix Lumix is Panasonic's brand of digital cameras, ranging from pocket point-and-shoot models to digital SLRs. Compact digital cameras DMC-LC5 and DMC-F7 were the first products of the Lumix series, released in 2001. Most Lumix cameras use diff ...

Early life

Pia Maria is from the Austrian region of

Tyrol Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...

. She is a trained make-up artist and works at the

Tyrolean State Theatre The Tyrolean State Theatre in Innsbruck (german: Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck) is the state theatre in Innsbruck, Austria, located near the historic Altstadt (Old Town) section of the city. The theatre is surrounded by Imperial Hofburg, the Ho ...

Innsbruck Innsbruck (; bar, Innschbruck, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian ) is the capital of Tyrol (state), Tyrol and the List of cities and towns in Austria, fifth-largest city in Austria. On the Inn (river), River Inn, at its junction with the ...

. She has been writing her own songs since she was 16.

Career

Pia Maria represented at the

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

, Italy, performing the song "

Halo Halo, halos or haloes usually refer to: * Halo (optical phenomenon) * Halo (religious iconography), a ring of light around the image of a head HALO, halo, halos or haloes may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Video games * ''Halo'' (franch ...

" by DJ

. During the promotional pre-parties for Eurovision, Pia Maria received criticism for vocal issues during the live performances of "Halo". It was later confirmed that her vocal struggles were due to

long COVID Long COVID or long-haul COVID (also known as post-COVID-19 syndrome, post-COVID-19 condition, post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), or chronic COVID syndrome (CCS)) is a condition characterized by long-term health problems persisting or appe ...

, as well as the vocalist's inexperience with

in-ear monitors In-ear monitors (IEMs) are devices used by musicians, audio engineers and audiophiles to listen to music or to hear a personal mix of vocals and stage instrumentation for live performance or recording studio mixing. They are also used by telev ...

. The Austrian delegation hired a vocal coach to work with Pia Maria to prepare for the contest, and the backing track for "Halo" was

transposed In linear algebra, the transpose of a matrix is an operator which flips a matrix over its diagonal; that is, it switches the row and column indices of the matrix by producing another matrix, often denoted by (among other notations). The tr ...

into a lower key for future pre-parties.

Discography

Singles

Awards and nominations

References

2003 births 21st-century Austrian women singers Living people Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 2022 Eurovision Song Contest entrants for Austria Austrian pop singers {{Austria-singer-stub