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JJ, real name Johannes Pietsch (born April 29, 2001, Vienna, Austria), is an Austrian singer, songwriter and countertenor of Austrian-Filipino origin. He gained international recognition after winning the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 in Basel with the song Wasted Love, which combined classical vocal technique, modern pop music and an electronic climax.
Before Eurovision, Pietsch gained experience both in televised vocal competitions and on the opera stage: he participated in The Voice UK and the Austrian show Starmania, studied at the opera school of the Vienna State Opera and performed in productions at Wiener Staatsoper. After winning the contest, he continued developing his own pop repertoire and released his debut EP Into the Unknown in 2026.
Childhood in Vienna and Dubai
Johannes Pietsch was born on April 29, 2001, in Vienna. His father is Austrian and worked in information technology, while his mother is from the Philippines.
Much of the future singer’s childhood was spent in Dubai, where the family moved. It was there that two directions of his musical interests began to develop: at home he heard popular music and took part in family karaoke evenings, while also becoming familiar with classical repertoire.
Johannes became interested in opera while still young. In interviews, he has said that he gradually began teaching himself classical vocal technique, using recordings and educational materials available online among other resources.
In 2016, the family returned to Vienna. Pietsch continued his school education in the Austrian capital and later focused on professional vocal training.
Opera education
After returning to Austria, Johannes studied at the opera school of the Vienna State Opera. He later enrolled at the Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität der Stadt Wien (MUK) — the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna.
From 2023, he studied solo classical singing there under renowned American soprano Linda Watson.
Pietsch has a countertenor voice and is capable of singing in a very high register extending into the soprano range. This characteristic later became a central element of his own pop music.
Vienna State Opera
Even before his international breakthrough, JJ took part in productions at the Vienna State Opera (Wiener Staatsoper).
Among the projects featuring him were Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), Von der Liebe Tod and Tschick. In a new production of The Magic Flute, he performed the role of one of the Three Boys.
Work on the opera stage gave Pietsch experience in classical performance before large audiences long before the emergence of Wasted Love.
The Voice UK
The first notable television stage of his career came with the ninth season of the British show The Voice UK in 2020.
At the blind audition, the 18-year-old Pietsch performed The Sound of Music. His high voice attracted the attention of will.i.am, who turned his chair and invited the singer to join his team.
Pietsch successfully passed the battle round and reached the Knockouts, where he performed The Winner Takes It All by ABBA. He was eliminated at that stage.
The Voice UK became the first major television project in which Pietsch’s unusual classically trained voice was presented to a mass pop audience.
Starmania
In 2021, Johannes participated in the fifth season of the Austrian vocal competition Starmania on ORF.
He passed several stages of the competition and reached the first final show. Starmania was the project that first made Pietsch noticeable to a broad Austrian television audience.
ORF later repeatedly referred to his participation in Starmania as one of the key stages of his career before Eurovision.
The emergence of the name JJ
The stage name JJ is connected to Johannes’s school nickname. According to him, his friends used it instead of the diminutive form Hansi.
By the time of his Eurovision participation, the short name JJ had become his main stage identity and helped separate his contemporary pop career from classical performances under his full name.
Wasted Love
At the beginning of 2025, Austrian public broadcaster ORF selected JJ to represent the country at Eurovision in Basel.
The song Wasted Love was written by Johannes Pietsch, Teodora Špirić and Thomas Thurner. Špirić had previously represented Austria at Eurovision 2023 as part of the duo Teya & Salena.
Wasted Love was officially released on March 6, 2025.
The composition begins as a dramatic pop ballad with pronounced elements of classical singing, gradually builds orchestral tension and transitions into electronic rhythm in its final section.
This structure allowed JJ to use both sides of his musical training: intimate pop delivery and his high countertenor register.
Eurovision Song Contest 2025
The 69th Eurovision Song Contest took place in Basel, Switzerland.
JJ performed in the second semifinal on May 15, 2025. Austria finished fifth with 104 points and qualified for the final.
The final took place on May 17, 2025. JJ performed Wasted Love ninth in the running order.
After the voting, Austria received 436 points and finished in first place.
- 258 points came from the professional juries;
- 178 points came from the public vote.
JJ won the professional jury vote convincingly. Austria finished fourth in the televote, so it would be inaccurate to say that he won both the jury vote and the public vote.
The combined result was enough to defeat the representatives of Israel and Estonia, who finished second and third respectively.
JJ’s victory became Austria’s third Eurovision win, following Udo Jürgens with Merci, Chérie in 1966 and Conchita Wurst with Rise Like a Phoenix in 2014.
Wasted Love staging
The staging of Wasted Love was built mainly around a black-and-white visual palette and used maritime imagery connected to the song’s lyrics.
One of the central elements was a boat-shaped structure. As the song developed, the calm opening scene transformed into a visual storm accompanying the transition toward the electronic climax.
The performance emphasized not so much traditional Eurovision choreography as the drama of the voice and the gradual transformation of the protagonist’s emotional state.
The success of Wasted Love
After the victory, Wasted Love topped Austria’s national chart.
ORF also reported that the song became the first track by an Austrian artist to exceed one million streams in Austria within a single week.
The contest success therefore quickly translated into a commercial result and allowed JJ to begin building an independent career beyond Eurovision.
Back to Forgetting
The first major release after his victory was Back to Forgetting, released on September 5, 2025.
Unlike Wasted Love, the new song relied considerably less on operatic elements. Contemporary electronic pop moved to the center, while the high classical register was used much more sparingly.
JJ himself regarded the song as a thematic continuation of Wasted Love: both compositions deal with the emotional consequences of failed relationships.
Haunting Me
The single Haunting Me followed in November 2025.
It continued his movement toward an independent contemporary pop repertoire and showed that after Eurovision JJ did not intend to limit his music exclusively to the combination of opera and electronic balladry used in Wasted Love.
Shapeshifter and Ballerina
At the beginning of 2026, JJ released Shapeshifter. The song appeared on February 6 and was later included on his EP.
The next notable release was Ballerina, in which the connection between contemporary pop, orchestral arrangement and a theatrical approach to vocals became stronger again.
Into the Unknown
JJ’s first EP, Into the Unknown, was released on May 14, 2026.
The release consists of six tracks:
- Shapeshifter
- Back to Forgetting
- Unknown
- Haunting Me
- Wasted Love
- Ballerina
The project was released by Manifester Music under exclusive license to Warner Music Group Germany.
Into the Unknown demonstrated a broader range of possible directions for JJ after Eurovision: from electronic pop to orchestral and operatic elements. For that reason, describing his music exclusively as “popera” is no longer sufficient — classical technique remains an important feature of his voice, but it is not used in the same way in every song.
Return to Eurovision in 2026
The victory of Wasted Love brought Eurovision 2026 to Vienna, and JJ took part in the contest as the reigning winner from the previous year.
In the second semifinal on May 14, 2026, he performed during the interval act and presented the new song Unknown.
In the final on May 16, JJ participated in the opening number The Queen of the Night. The performance combined elements of Mozart’s music with his own contemporary material and featured large-scale choreography.
Eurovision therefore became more than a single competition episode for him: it formed an important part of his transition from opera performer and television talent-show contestant to an independent pop artist.
Musical style
JJ’s defining musical characteristic is the combination of classical countertenor technique with contemporary pop music.
His recordings may combine:
- classical vocal technique;
- a high register extending into soprano notes;
- orchestral and string arrangements;
- contemporary pop;
- electronic music;
- dance rhythms;
- more conventional conversational pop delivery.
Wasted Love demonstrates the transition between these worlds most clearly: the song begins almost like a contemporary aria but ends with an electronic climax. His later compositions show that JJ can use his high register much more selectively and work within a conventional modern pop structure.
Countertenor
JJ is often described as a countertenor, but his vocal distinction lies in more than simply being able to reach very high notes.
Countertenor technique allows a male voice to work in registers traditionally associated with alto and, in some cases, soprano. In Pietsch’s case, this is combined with conventional pop singing, allowing him to change both register and vocal character within a single composition.
This transition between natural pop delivery and the high classical register became the most recognizable vocal element of Wasted Love.
JJ discography
Into the Unknown — 2026
Debut EP bringing together material from the first stage of his career following his Eurovision victory.
Main songs: Wasted Love, Back to Forgetting, Haunting Me, Shapeshifter, Unknown and Ballerina.
Main singles
- Wasted Love — 2025;
- Back to Forgetting — 2025;
- Haunting Me — 2025;
- Shapeshifter — 2026;
- Ballerina — 2026.
The significance of the Eurovision victory
JJ’s victory became an unusual example of how professional classical vocal training can be used within a contemporary competition pop song without moving completely into classical crossover.
Before Wasted Love, his main professional platforms were television singing competitions, music education and the Vienna State Opera. After Eurovision, the center of his career shifted toward his own pop catalog.
At the same time, JJ did not abandon classical technique. Instead, it became one of several tools he uses alongside electronic production, orchestration and conventional contemporary pop vocals.
Johannes Pietsch entered international pop culture through the Eurovision Song Contest 2025, but his story began much earlier — with a musical childhood in Dubai, a self-developed interest in opera, The Voice UK, Starmania, studies in Vienna and work on the opera stage. The victory of Wasted Love became the point at which these different directions came together in a single musical project.
