Music. Eurovision 2025: Who is JJ, the Austrian candidate who won the 69th edition?

With his falsetto voice and angelic smile, JJ secured Austria's first Eurovision triumph on Saturday night since bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst 11 years ago.

With Wasted Love , which throws soprano high notes between two ballad refrains before culminating in a techno surge, the Alpine country made a risky but rewarding choice: the song received 436 points. "It's beyond my wildest dreams. It's crazy," he said after his victory, trophy in hand.

"It surprises people that a man can sing so high," the 24-year-old Austrian-Filipino told AFP in late April from Vienna during his preparation for the competition in the studios of the public television service ORF. This astonishment, which has turned into fascination, has become accustomed to the music lover, who grew up in Dubai before learning his trade with small roles at the Vienna State Opera. Even though he says he appreciates the "classical world" that makes Austria shine beyond its borders and where "everything is very strict," JJ - Johannes Pietsch by his real name - also wants to have the "freedom to let off steam" and "experiment."

So he set his sights on a mix known as operatic pop, an "interdisciplinary and genre-bending approach" that "enriches thinking and fosters creative exchange," applauds Andreas Mailath-Pokorny, the rector of the very serious school where JJ still studies opera.

Explosive on Saturday in his ethereal performance in black and white, compared to the not always subtle chords of Finland's very explicitly sexual propositions or the frank laughter of the Swedes, JJ innovates above all as a countertenor. Even if some associate his piece with that of the Swiss artist Nemo, last year's winner . And that the classic was heard at Eurovision since the 1950s and has gradually merged into other styles with varying successes, the Italian group Il Volo having managed to climb to third place in 2015. His melancholic performance speaks of a period in his life when he "wasted too much love" without receiving any.

Misfortune for the couple, glory on stage: heartbreak had already succeeded in the Alpine country in 1966, during its first victory with Merci, Chérie by Udo Jürgens, a breakup hit, already covered on stage by Helene Fischer, the queen of German pop. "When JJ sings, it's as if the clocks stop ticking," commented drag queen Conchita Wurst about him, seeing in this "impressive professional," with whom she recorded a duet, her worthy successor. The artist had offered his precious professional advice, as had singer Louane, a good friend, whose lyrics JJ had studied in French class.

From the vast repertoire of the 68 previous editions of Eurovision , L'oiseau et l'enfant by Marie Myriam, which earned France its last victory in 1977, remains one of his favorite songs and he performs it with joy in its original version.

His gift for languages ​​comes from his schooling at an international school in the Emirates, where his Austrian father, a computer scientist, had started his business. It was from him that he inherited his taste for classical music, Bach and Mozart in particular, while his mother, originally from the Philippines and a cook, listened to Celine Dion and Whitney Houston. German, English, Tagalog, Arabic, and French: JJ can use his four octaves as he sees fit, an asset when the competition is so massively followed outside the European continent.

"On stage, everyone has their place," says the reserved JJ, while gay, lesbian, and transgender people are seeing their rights regress in countries that have left the competition, regularly accused of being too rainbow-friendly, like Hungary. "Not just the LGBT+ community," but everyone, because "music is a unique language that every human being can speak and understand." Whether it's pop, classical, or... non-binary.