Aline Lahoud
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Aline Lahoud (Arabic:الين لحود), born 2 March 1981, is a Lebanese singer, and the daughter of well-known singer Salwa Katrib. She was selected to sing for Lebanon at the Eurovision Song Contest 2005 in Kyiv, where the nation had been due to make its debut appearance in the competition. However, she was miss out following Lebanon's abrupt decision to withdraw.
Aline honed her natural talent by studying singing and dramatic art between 1997 and 1999. By 2002, she had graduated from university with a BA in Communication Arts, majoring in Screenplay and Directing Studies. In recent years, she has supplemented her burgeoning singing career by acting in plays, directing short films, and in 2003 moved on to work as assistant director on a full length film, Mes Cousines et Moi.
At a time when the idea of Lebanon finally taking up its right to enter the Eurovision Song Contest was being seriously floated, Aline left herself ideally placed to be one of the beneficiaries by winning the international prize at the Megahit festival in Turkey, in collaboration with prolific song-writer Jad Rahbani. The Lebanese selectors quickly looked to the same combination to conjure up some of the same magic on the Eurovision stage in Kyiv.
Reflecting Lebanon's long-standing place in the international francophone orbit, the lyrics of the country's proposed first Eurovision entry were in French, a language in which Aline is fluent. The song was entitled "Quand tout s'enfuit", and as a debut entry would have begun its quest for victory in the semi-final on 19 May, from which only ten entries will progress to join the pre-qualified countries in the grand final on 21 May. The late decision to withdraw was taken after the Lebanese broadcasters conceded to the European Broadcasting Union that they could not guarantee they would uphold the fairness of the event by transmitting it without selective interruption, an implicit reference to the requirement of screening the performance of Shiri Maymon, the representative of Israel.
