Natalia Druyts (born 3 December 1980), best known mononymously as Natalia is a Belgian recording artist and performer She initially rose to prominence as the first runner-up of the inaugural season of Idool, the Flemish version of Idols, in which she lost to Peter Everard, who got 50.7% of the votes.
Early life and career edit:
Natalia was born in Westerlo, Belgium. She has graduated as translator English-Spanish. Before participating in Idool 2003 she sang with a cover-group called Secret Me. They sang at lots of weddings. Natalia also performed as opening act for Belgian singer Raymond van het Groenewoud.
List of songs performed on Idool edit:
Antwerp Auditions:,
"Joyful, Joyful" by Lauryn Hill
Theatre Round Day One:,
"Joyful, Joyful" by Lauryn Hill
Theatre Round Day Two:,
"I Say A Little Prayer" by Aretha Franklin
Theatre Round Day Three:,
"Strong Enough" by Cher
Top 50 - 'little Live-Show':,
"When You Believe" by Whitney Houston & Mariah Carey
Top 10 - "My Idol":,
"I Wanna Dance With Somebody" by Whitney Houston
Top 9 - 80's:,
"I'm So Excited" by The Pointer Sisters
Top 8 - Dutch:,
"De Roos" by Ann Christy
Top 7 - Movie:,
"Think" by Aretha Franklin
Top 6 - Disco:,
"Blame It On The Boogie" by The Jackson Five
Top 5 - Big Band:,
"It's Oh So Quiet" by Björk
Top 4 - Latino:,
"Hijo De La Luna" by Loona Conga by Gloria Estefan
Top 3 - Choice of the Juries:,
"Natural Woman" by Aretha Franklin "It's Raining Men" by The Weather Girls
Grand Final:
"For You",
"Without You" by Mariah Carey,
"Think" by Aretha Franklin,
,
,
After Idool 2003 Natalia released a CD single "Without You", which included the three songs she sang during the Finals of the show. The single peaked at number 2 in the charts, and Natalia won some Awards. One of them was the "Tien Om Te Zien Trofee 2003". Not much later, Idool-jury Jan Leyers wrote two songs for her, which she performed in the Belgian movie Team Spirit II, releasing "I've Only Begun To Fight" as second single, while she recorded her full-album, This Time. The CD was released, and Natalia started her tour. At the same time, she performed at the Preselections for the Eurovision with "Higher Than The Sun".
In October 2005, Natalia released a single together with The Pointer Sisters, "Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves", which reached number 2 in the Belgium charts. She performed 10 concerts with The Pointer Sisters in January 2006 during "Natalia Meets The Pointer Sisters" in Sportpaleis, Antwerp, attended by more than 130,000 people.
Natalia released a single together with En Vogue called "Glamorous" in October 2007; it reached number 2 in the Belgium charts. In January 2008 she performed with En Vogue & Shaggy during "Natalia Meets En Vogue, Feat Shaggy" at the Sportpalies in Antwerp. 75,000 people attended the six shows.
In 2009 she asked the French designer Frédéric Luca Landi to design her dress for her concert in Sportpaleis. In January 2011, Natalia planned a new concert with an international superstar, this time she chose Anastacia. They recorded a single called "Burnin' Star", and in January 2011 toured as "Natalia Meets Anastacia".
Natalia has sold over 400,000 albums, and over 1 million concert tickets between 2003 and 2010 in Flanders. While she's a major star in Flanders, she's almost unknown in francophone side Belgium.
Eurovision Song Contest preselection edit:
In February 2004, not so long after Idool 2003, Natalia gave it a shot during "EUROSONG'04", the Flanders' Preselections with the song "Higher Than The Sun". She managed to get into the Final, in which she ended second, after Xandee, who represented Belgium at the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "1 Life". Belgium did not score much that same year, and there were lots of speculations whether Natalia would have done a better job or not. Natalia's "Higher Than The Sun" reached number 2 in Belgium charts. Xandee took the first place in the same chart.
Dancing with the Stars edit:
Belgian television company VTM asked Natalia to join Dancing with the Stars in January 2006 (Dutch: Sterren op de Dansvloer). Together with her professional dancer, she reached the finale and ended up second.
Natalia Backstage edit:
After recovering from her voice-troubles, Natalia's management decided to do a short TV-show, to show the fans what's going on behind the scenes, how the new record is recorded, photoshoots, new tour, etc. It was a 4-episode show on VTM, called "Natalia Backstage"
