Loukas Giorkas

Giorkas was born and raised in Cyprus. According to his official Eurovision biography, he studied music while still at school, gained his first qualification in classical guitar and took Byzantine music lessons for five years. He also played in bands and orchestras in Cyprus and tried other instruments, but singing remained his strongest skill. His first official attempt as a singer won first prize at the 12th Cyprus Song Composition Competition, hosted by the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (RIK).

After school he moved to Greece to study Biology at the University of Patras. In a 2025 television interview he explained that his father had sent the application for The X Factor, expecting the judges to turn his son down so that he would concentrate on his studies. Things turned out differently: Giorkas won the 2008–2009 series. His first single, Δεν φαντάζεσαι (You Cannot Imagine), written by George Theofanous, followed, and the EP Μαζί (Together) came out on Sony Music Greece in September 2009.

From 2009 he sang live alongside established artists such as Helena Paparizou, Natasa Theodoridou, Giorgos Mazonakis, Dimitris Mitropanos and Peggy Zina. On 2 March 2011 Greek viewers chose him to represent Greece at Eurovision. In 2018, while singing a winter season in Patras, he said he would return to his unfinished Biology degree.

Watch My Dance, his Eurovision entry with Stereo Mike, joins two languages: Giorkas sings the Greek chorus and Stereo Mike raps the verses in English. The EBU credits the music to Giannis Christodoulopoulos and the lyrics to Eleana Vrachali. In Düsseldorf the song won the first semi-final and finished seventh in the final. For a learner, the key point is the contrast between the sung Greek lines and the English rap: only the Greek part is listening practice in Greek.

After Eurovision his work moved mainly through Greek-language singles. Στην ουσία (In Essence) appeared on Minos EMI in 2015. From 2017 he released songs with Cobalt Music, among them Υποκρίνεσαι (You Are Pretending) in 2018, with music and lyrics by Angelos Astropalitis, and Έλα ήλιε μου (Come, My Sun), a duet with Kostas Tournas, in 2019. The 2022 album Πάμε απ’ την αρχή (Let’s Start Again) collected ten of these singles. In 2023 he recorded Σ’ ευχαριστώ (Thank You) with George Theofanous for the soundtrack of the television series Μαύρο ρόδο (Black Rose). The live album Streaming Living Concert (2025), on Heaven Music, opens with a new version of Watch My Dance followed by ten songs with Greek titles, and further singles appeared in 2026.

Giorkas’s path links Cyprus, a university town in the Peloponnese and the Greek music stage, and shows how a television competition can redirect a life plan. Watch My Dance remains his only Eurovision entry, and he returned to it on his 2025 live album. For practice, listen to the Greek chorus of Watch My Dance and note one verb you hear, then compare it with the English rap verses. Next, read his 2018 statement on this page about coming to Patras with the aim of getting a degree. Use its structure to present your own goal: Ήρθα στην Ελλάδα έχοντας ως στόχο να μιλήσω άνετα ελληνικά (I came to Greece with the aim of speaking Greek comfortably). This practice sentence is ours, not his.

• As a schoolboy he took Byzantine music lessons for five years.
• His father sent his X Factor application, hoping the judges would say no.
• Watch My Dance won the first semi-final of Eurovision 2011.
• In 2018, about ten years after first arriving in Patras, he decided to resume his Biology studies there.