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 female vocal performance award.

The 2009 esctoday.com Award for Best female vocal performance goes to…

• …Yohanna of Iceland
  
  

Yohanna represented Iceland in the Eurovision Song Contest, won the first semi final and finished second in the final with her song Is it true?.

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

The winner

This is the second esctoday.com award for Iceland this year and the fourth one overall following victories in the categories Best duo/group performance and Best duo/group vocal performance in 2008 as well as Best backing performers in 2009. It is still the first award in this category. Previously, this award has gone to Alenka Gotar (Slovenia) in 2007 and Vânia Fernandes (Portugal) in 2008.

Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir was born in Denmark, but her family moved to Reykjavik when she was two years old. Having successfully taken part in a singing competition, she entered a music school for children. Her talent was spotted early and she released her first album when she was only ten years old. The record turned out to be a success and a second album followed in 2001. Her last album for a few years, which included a collection of Christmas songs, was released in 2003 and she then took a break from the music business.

After years of training, in 2008 the singer launched her fourth album Butterflies and Elvis, which was a collaboration with British songwriter Lee Horrocks. In 2009, she entered the Icelandic national selection for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest and could win it with the song Is it true?. After her second place in Moscow, the song became a commercial success in many countries all over Europe. Her follow-up single I miss you also reached the single charts in the United Kingdom.

The complete results

Getting about one third of the votes, Yohanna won this category ahead of Patricia Kaas, who has already taken home the trophy for Best female performance.

1. Yohanna (Iceland) – 33.4%
2. Patricia Kaas (France) – 22.7%
3. Jade Ewen (United Kingdom) – 19.1%
4. Malena Ernman – 15.6%
5. Chiara (Malta) – 9.3%

The winning performance

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

esctoday.com interview with Yohanna in April 2009

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

The next category to see its winner revealed today will be Best male vocal performance.