The votes for the fourth annual esctoday.com awards have been cast over the last three and a half weeks and now it is time to reveal the results. We continue with the Best backing performers award.

The 2009 esctoday.com Award for Best backing performers goes to…

• …Erna Hrönn Ólafsdóttir, Hera Björk, Friðrik Ómar, Hallgrímur Jensson and Börkur Birgisson of Iceland

Erna Hrönn Ólafsdóttir, Hera Björk, Friðrik Ómar, Hallgrímur Jensson and Börkur Birgisson supported Icelandic singer Yohanna on stage when she represented Iceland in the Eurovision Song Contest this year, won the first semi final and finished second in the final with the song Is it true?.

• You can find the list of all award results revealed so far this year here.

The winners

This is the third esctoday.com award for Iceland overall following the victories in the Best duo/grop performance and Best duo/group vocal performance categories last year. Therefore, it is also the third award for Friðrik Ómar as he was one of the two members of Euroband, who took home the two trophies last year. The Best backing performers award is given out for the very first time this year.

Yohanna was supported by three backing singers, who were Erna Hrönn Ólafsdóttir, Hera Björk Þórhallsdóttir and Friðrik Ómar as well as cellist Hallgrímur Jensson and guitarist Börkur Birgisson.

Erna Hrönn Ólafsdóttir had already tried to represent Iceland as a lead singer twice. In the 2007 Icelandic selection, she did not make it past the semi finals with Örlagadís and the same happened in 2009, when she was eliminated in the second semi final with Glópagull.

Hera Björk took part in the second semi final of the 2007 Icelandic selection with Mig dreymdi and in 2009, she finished second in the Danish national final with Someday. She was also a backing singer for Euroband in Eurovision 2008.

Friðrik Ómar was one half of that duo and he had already finished third in the 2006 Icelandic national final with Það sem verður and second in 2007 with Eldur.

The complete results

The Icelandic team was the clear winner of this category ahead of the singers and dancers from Norway. The other three nominees are very close to each other with a tie for third place between Ukraine and Sweden.

1. Iceland – 36.9%
2. Norway – 23.1%
3. Sweden – 13.4%
   Ukraine – 13.4%
4. Turkey – 13.2%

The winning performance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L69Cg9Co7Q

esctoday.com interview with Friðrik Ómar in April 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY4d8zDBZ8E

Erna Hrönn Ólafsdóttir and Hera Björk performing at the Icelandic Eurovision party in Moscow, May 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQmqZWrFNUU

The next award result to be revealed today will be Most traditional Europop song.