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 Performance of the year award.

The 2009 esctoday.com Award for Performance of the year goes to…

• … Patricia Kaas of France

Patricia Kaas represented France in the Eurovision Song Contest this year and placed eighth in the final with the song Et s'il fallait le faire.

The winner

This is the third esctoday.com award for France both this year and overall. Previously, awards were achieved for Best female performance and Lyricist of the year/Non-English and multilingual lyrics. It is the very first time that this award does not go to the representative from Ukraine as the previous winners were Tina Karol in 2006, Verka Serduchka in 2007 and Ani Lorak in 2008.

Patricia Kaas is one of the most successful French singers ever. She was discoverd by actor Gérard Depardieu at the age of 19 and released a first single in 1985, but her first major success came in1988 with the release of the album Mademoiselle chante….She has sold more than 15 million records since.

All of her seven studio albums had managed to reach the top ten of the French album charts when she decided to take a major break from the music business in 2005. In 2009, she returned with the release of her eighth studio album Kabaret and the announcement that she will represent France in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow.

Patricia Kaas is not onlyfamous in France but has also enjoyed commercial success in Belgium, Switzerland, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and even New Zealand. Her style is often described as "chanson" but in fact, it mixes classic French elements with American pop and rock music.

The complete results

Being the winner in the Best female performance category, Patricia Kaas won this award ahead of Alexander Rybak, who was the winner in the Best male performance category. Ukraine misses out on a fourth award in this category in a row but still did rather well getting about one fifth of the votes.

1. Patricia Kaas (France) – 27.6%
2. Alexander Rybak (Norway) – 20.9%
3. Svetlana Loboda (Ukraine) – 20.5%
4. Yohanna (Iceland) – 18.8%
5. Hadise (Turkey) – 12.3%

The winning performance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81_vWTUpIW0

esctoday.com interview with Patricia Kaas in May 2009, prior to the Eurovision Song Contest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0UdwOJvYJw

The winner in the very last category will also be revealed today – Song of the year.