Image Credit: AVROTROS
They were one of the first acts confirmed for Eurovision 2023, and now we finally have their entry!
Mia Nicolai and Dion Cooper will represent The Netherlands in Liverpool with their song ‘Burning Daylight’.
Here’s all you need to know about Mia & Dion ahead of the contest!
Who are Mia & Dion?
Michaja Nicolaï, who goes by ‘Mia Nicolai’ in music, was born on March 7th 1996 in Amsterdam. Her father is a lawyer and politician for Party For Animals – an animal rights and welfare group, and her mother is a composer and musician, born in Russia. Mia was enrolled in ballet classes at just age 3, which inspired her to take up music, learning how to play both the piano and violin during her childhood.
Dion Cooper was born on November 29th 1993, and started following his dream of becoming a musician 10 years ago. He had dreamed of being an artist since he was 4 years old – his father was a drummer, and from this Dion became particularly interested in the music of The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix . He uses the mantra ‘bring the joy!’, which he carries through with each musical release he makes.
Early Careers
Mia made her debut on the music scene in 2018 with a cover of ‘At Last’. She released her first original single ‘Set Me Free’ in 2020. Her music has over a million streams combined on Spotify, despite only having 4 releases and an acoustic version of her aforementioned original track.
Dion started his career by playing small gigs, which was halted in 2018 when he ended up losing his voice – stopping him from performing for almost the whole year. When the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, like many musicians he found himself without anywhere to play, so he began to contact the artists and writers he’d wanted to work with, and started creating songs for his EP ‘Too Young Too Dumb’. The EP was noticed by Eurovision 2019 winner Duncan Laurence, who invited Dion to support him on the ‘Small Town Boy Tour’. Duncan and Dion have become firm friends with Duncan helping to write not only Dion’s latest solo single ‘Blue Jeans’, but also his Eurovision entry with Mia.
Eurovision 2023
Mia & Dion were announced as The Netherlands’ entrants for 2023 on November 1st 2022. Their song is called ‘Burning Daylight’, and is written by the duo alongside Duncan Laurence, Jordan Garfield and Loek Van Der Grinten.
They’ll follow in the footsteps of S10, who returned The Netherlands to the left-hand side of the scoreboard in 2022 with her song ‘De Diepte’, which came 11th in the final. With expectations high for Mia & Dion to deliver, could they do even better?
At Eurovision, they’ll perform in the 2nd half of Semi Final 1, alongside Azerbaijan, Czechia, Finland, Israel, Moldova, Sweden and Switzerland.
We wish Mia, Dion and The Netherlands the best of luck in Liverpool this May!
You can follow Mia & Dion on social media!
Twitter – @mianicolaii, @itsdioncooper
Instagram – @mianicolai, @itsdioncooper
TikTok – @mianicolai_music, @itsdioncooper
