Claudia Beni

At the time when she first participated in Dora, the Croatian national preselections for the annual Eurovision Song Contest, Claudia was only twelve, already an experienced band singer, having performed all over Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia and Montenegro with her elder brother Danijel's band 'Teens' - formerly known as Miæi rokeri (Little Rockers). After having enjoyed sales of almost 30,000 for three Teens albums and a number of hit singles, and after receiving the 2002 Porin prize, Claudia broke away from the Teens. Her first twelve-song solo album "Claudia" was released just before the summer of 2002. The singles "Tako hrabar da me ostavi" (Brave enough to leave me) (one of the songs in the Best New Album honored at the 2001 Split Festival), "Ili ona ili ja" (It's her or me) (Zagrebfest 2001), and "Led" (Ice) (HRF 2002) put her at the top of the charts. Claudia has also worked together with a "veteran" of the Croatian pop scene, Ivana Banfic, singing the song "Hrvatice vas vole" (Croatian women love you), dedicated to the national soccer team during the World Championship in Japan. Claudia is a second-year-student at the Hairstylists' School in Opatija. She lives with her parents and her brother Danijel in Pobri, near Opatija.