Catarina Pereira also known as Catarina Clau is a Portuguese singer, dancer and actress. Catarina competed in the Festival da Canção 2010, as well as in the 2014edition, with the songs "Canta Por Mim" and "Mea Culpa" respectively, finishing in 2nd place in both occasions.
Career
In 2010, Catarina was invited by Carlos Coelho and Andrej Babic to perform "Canta Por Mim" in the Festival da Canção 2010, the portuguese national selection method for the Eurovision Song Contest. Since the day it was presented by RTP, the song became a fan-favourite in Portugal and around Europe. It was one of the most searched songs on YouTube during the "Eurovision season" and the most played one on RTP's website. On 4 March, Catarina performed in the second semi-final of the contest, finishing 1st with 4614 votes and winning a place in the big final. On the night of 6 March, Catarina performed in the number 8 spot, preceding the winning song "Há dias assim" by Filipa Azevedo. Despite being the big favourite of the Portuguese viewers, who gave her the famous "12 points", Catarina finished 2nd, since she only came 5th in the district jury's voting. Some weeks after the Eurovision Song Contest 2010, Catarina was nominated for several awards at the annual ESCtoday National Final Awards 2010. She won two awards: "Best Pop/Dance Song" and "Best Female Performance". In the same year, Catarina was chosen by the localOGAE to represent Portugal in the OGAE Second Chance Contest 2010 with "Canta Por Mim", the song with which she competed in the Festival da Canção 2010. Portugal finished in 3rd place, after receiving 203 points from the other 21 participating countries and guest juries. In 2014, Catarina competed in the Festival da Canção for the second time, with another dance-pop song from Carlos Coelho and Andrej Babic called "Mea Culpa". The singer describes it as a modern and adult version of "Canta Por Mim". She was second in the final, behind the winning song "Quero Ser Tua" by Suzy. After the reveal of the result, there was outrage among Portuguese fans claiming that Emmanuel, the composer of the winning song influenced the televote causing Suzy to take the win over Pereira. This claim has been made before in other contests of RTP in which Emmanuel has emerged victorious. After failing to win Festival da Canção 2014, Pereira was selected once again to represent Portugal in the OGAE Second Chance Contest. She finished again in 3rd place, after receiving 197 points from all the voting countries and guest juries. The maximum 12 points came from Denmark, Israel, Norway and Sweden. In 2019 she auditioned for the seventh edition of The Voice Portugal. She turned the four judges chairs and chose Marisa Liz as a mentor, eventually being eliminated at the Knockouts phase.
