About
Biography
Arilena Ara, known by her artistic name Arilena is an Albanian singer. She has participated in many children’s festivals in Shkodra.
Tirana linked Arilena to the TV Klan where she first appeared on a show called Gjeniu i Vogel and then decided to compete in X Factor Albania. This was the wish of her father, who passed away a few months before Arilena was introduced to X Factor 2. Arilena won the competition and dedicated the victory to her father. She also won a contract from the organizers of the X Factor show. Seeing her age (then only 15), her management decided not to rush Arilena’s career.
Arilena peformed in several shows like “Dance With Me”, competing with her partner Labi, a Kosovar journalist. On September 26, 2014, she released her first song “Aeroplan,” with a video clip that garnered over 2 million views on YouTube. After “Aeroplan” she released a follow up “Business Class” which also got a lot of views on YouTube as well as her third song called “Vegim”, dedicated to her father’s death. In 2016, she released a song called “November”.
In december 2019, Arilena Ara won Festival i Këngës and therefore, was supposed to represent Albania in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Shaj”, that was translated into English as “Fall from the sky”. Unfortunately, due to the Corona crisis, that didn’t happen.
After Eurovision, Arilena featured in a hit single of Alban Skënderaj, “A i sheh”. Her songs “Aligator”, “Thirr Policinë” and “Ke me mungu” all reached the Albanian top-10, the latter the #1 spot. In december 2021, she teamed up with Gjon’s Tears for the song “Dance me”.
