Alexandra Maquet

Short Biography

Alexandra Maquet (born 27 September 1988), known professionally as Alma, is a French singer and songwriter. She will represent France in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 with the song "Requiem".Early life Alexandra Maquet (Alma) was born September 27, 1988 in Lyon as the eldest of four daughters to business man Alain Maquet and the painter and contemporary artist Marie-Pierre Maquet, a.k.a. MPM .Alma started singing and playing the piano already during childhood. When she was 16 years old, the family moved to Miami. However, after American high school she decided to move back alone 17 years old to France to study at IESEG School of Management in Lille where she obtained a Master Degree in Business Administration and Management 2011. During her studies she spent more than a year in São Paolo, Brazil as an exchange student and learned Portuguese. After her studies at IESEG, she was assistant Manager at Abercrombie & Fitch in Milan during 2011, and moved thereafter to Brussels where she started to compose.In addition to French, she speaks English, Italian, and Portuguese.Career 2012–15: Early career In 2012 Alma started her music career by publishing one of her first compositions, "Gone", dedicated to the memory of a close friend from her elementary school Collège de Marcq who had died in a traffic accident 2009. The song was recorded at Studio Dada and posted on YouTube, January 14, 2012. It was followed by the release of the song "Again", February 3, 2012 and "Elsewhere" May 19, 2012. The songs got positive reviews in the French online magazines Bulle Sonore and La Bande Sonore.Alma gave her first public performances May 13 and June 3, 2012 at Rooster’s Bar in Brussels accompanied by the guitarist Alain Goossens with a mix of both covers and own compositions. Their covers of Lana del Rey's "Video Games", Gary Jules’ "Mad World" and Nadeah's "Odile" were recorded at Avalon Studios in Brussels and posted on YouTube and also on her newly started official Facebook-page. She started studies at ACP la Manufacture Chanson to train her singing and composing techniques and gave training concerts at Les Jeudis Chanson during autumn 2012.Alma was discovered by Chris Corazza and Donatien Guillon at Chic Acoustic which led to a radio broadcast December 10, 2012, an interview and a one hour concert at Le Malibv in Paris December 12, 2012.Alma had a concert at Le Connetable in Paris April 27, 2013 and on June 14, 2013 she participated in the closing concert of ACP la Manufacture Chanson at restaurant Les Trois Baudets in Paris. During this time she also worked with promotion. Téléssonne broadcast a video portrait with extracts from her songs. She also started to use her artist name Alma and Vigie Discographique made a video interview and recorded four songs "Libido", "Mr Unsatisfaction", "Sitting down" and "What do you want from me" in the Pixel Room Studio, Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, that were published on YouTube. She released a cover of Julia Stone and Benjamin Biolay "Let´s Forget" with Benjamin Ollive, June 29, 2013. On September 19, 2013 she was a guest in the program Ça reste entre nous in RadioVL and made an interview where she promoted her first major concert at the concert boat La Péniche in Lille, September 27–28, 2013.Edoardo Grassi, who at the time worked for Carson Productions, invited her to join the weekly television show Les Chansons d'abord on France 3 hosted by Natasha St-Pier, where she participated irregularly from December 1, 2013 to June 15, 2014. In her first program she performed the song "Entre nous" and got praise from Celine Dion. In December 2013 a successful crowd funding project at Kissbankers was started to record the duet "Trinquons" together with Benjamin Ollive at Studio Davout and the single was released February 26, 2014. She met the composer and singer Nazim Khaled on the show Les Chansons d'abord early 2014, and they decided to start a musical collaboration. During the remaining of 2014 several songs were composed, among them the song "Requiem", which was written by Nazim Khaled in late October 2014 and first performed by Alma at the festival for emerging French performers La Créative in La Bellevilloise de Paris, January 24, 2015. During July and August 2014, Alma was an actor in Odah & Dako’s online comedy video series Punchlife.2015–present: Warner Music, Eurovision Song Contest and "Ma peau aime" On April 10, 2015, Alma signed a contract with Warner Music France. During 2015 and 2016 the collaboration with Nazim Khaled continued which led to the single "La Chute Est Lente", released on June 10, 2016 and the song "Ivre". She performed as pre-artist to Amir Haddad during autumn and winter 2016-2017: Maulaunay September 17, Arnouville October 18, La Cigale Paris November 17, Rock School Barbey December 6, Nice February 4 and Samer February 14. Around December 10, 2016, she was informed by Edoardo Grassi, since September 2015 the head of the French delegation at Eurovision, that the song "Requiem" had been selected as the French entry for Eurovision Song Contest 2017.On February 9, 2017, Alma was officially announced as the French representative to the Eurovision Song Contest 2017, with the song "Requiem", composed by Nazim Khaled. As France is a member of the "Big Five", she will automatically advance to the final, held on May 13, 2017 in Kiev, Ukraine. Alma's debut studio album Ma peau aime, was released on May 5, 2017 and contains 13 songs.