Aud Saskia Wilken (born 1965 in East Berlin) is a Danish-German singer, best known for her participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 1995.
Early life and career
Wilken was born to a Danish father and German mother, and lived in East Germany until 1974, when the family moved to Denmark.
Her musical debut came in 1988 on the album Midnight at the Grooveyard by post-punk band The Overlords. She then appeared on The Poets‘ self-titled album in 1990. In the same year of 1990 she took part in the recording of the song „I Love You Love Me Love“ as featuring artist for Danish musician Master Fatman. This song was written by Aud alongside with Morten Lindberg.
Eurovision Song Contest
In 1995, Aud participate at Dansk Melodi Grand Prix. The final held on 25 March, 1995 and consisted of 11 participants. She passed the first round and received 46 out of 60 possible points in the second round. The gap from the second place was only 2 points. Wilken’s song „Fra Mols til Skagen“ („From Mols to Skagen“) was narrowly chosen as the Danish representative in the 40th Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 13 May in Dublin.
The song was performed nineteenth on the night, following Sweden’s Jan Johansen with „Se på mej“ and preceding Slovenia’s Darja Švajger with „Prisluhni mi“. „Fra Mols til Skagen“ was an unusual song for Eurovision at the time, and finished in fifth place out of 23 entries, receiving an important 2 sets of top marks (from Sweden and Norway) and 10 points from Russia. Wilken was best-placed Danish entry of the 1990s.
Later career
In 1996 Aud was invited to record the song „Summers Got the Colour“ composed by Povl Kristian with text by Lars K. Andersen for the Danish crime thriller film „Pusher“ directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Wilken’s solo album, Diamond in the Rough, was released in 1999.[3] 21 June, 2004 was released various artists album På Danske Læber (Leonard Cohen-Sange I Danske Fortolkninger) with song „Her og Nu“ composed by Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson and sung by Aud Wilken. 4 October, 2004 was released one more various artists album Cornelis på danska with song „Jeg Havde Engang En Båd“ recorded by Aud Wilken and Niels Skousen.
Wilken also participated in the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix in 2007 with her song „Husker du“ („Do You Remember“). She performed in second semifinal at 2 February, 2007 and failed to qualify. After the semi-finals two wildcard selections were held for the listeners of Danish radio stations P3 and P4, who selected two songs from those rejected in the semi-finals to progress to the final. Wilken’s song participated in the voting of the radio station P3 and lost to eventual champion DQ receiving 18% of voters (2nd place).
8 March, 2007 was released various artists album A Tribute To Joe Meek – The Lady With The Crying Eyes with song „Hab Ich Das Recht“ sung by Wilken.
In 2007, she moved to America, where she has been writing and composing her own songs. In 2009, she released a song, entitled, „Knowing That It’s There“. Originally the song was included in the album 12 Beats Per Minute (2009) of the American composer Edward Dowrick and re-released in 2013 as single. Also Wilken’s voice can be heard in other works of Dowrick. In „Carry Across the Epoch“, „Cathedral of Hidden Light“ and „Rockin Mummer Mermaid“ from 2017 album Everyone Loves a Story; „Circle of Ease“ and „The Witness“ from 2018 album Orchestral Sketches from the New Hope Continent; „Fluidity“ from 2019 album Illuminated Realities; „The Yellow Spinning of a New Appearing Chord“ from 2020 album Musings of the Solar Winds.
In 2017 she recorded three songs with Knud Odde: „Lavender Graa“, „Zahrtmanns Have“ and „Salamander“. All songs were included in the mini album I Zahrtmanns Have and released on 3 October, 2017.