After two pop albums in Fairytales and No Boundaries (2010), Rybak switched to become a family-oriented artist, focusing on children's and classical music and frequently performing with youth orchestras.

He represented Norway in the 2009 contest in Moscow, Russia and won the competition with 387 points—the highest tally any country has achieved in the history of Eurovision under the then-voting system—with "Fairytale", a song he wrote and composed.

Rybak has frequently provided commentary on the contest, and also worked as a journalist in 2011, and as a judge on the Belgian national finals in 2016 and 2023.

His father Igor Rybak, a well-known classical violinist who performed alongside Pinchas Zukerman, defected to Norway in 1991 after a concert tour of a Belarusian chamber orchestra which he was part of.

Rybak's father lived with a musical family who gave him shelter and food in exchange for violin lessons for their son.

In 2006, Rybak won Kjempesjansen ("The Great Opportunity"), a talent competition hosted by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), with his own song, "Foolin".

In 2007, Rybak played the fiddle in Oslo Nye Teater's production of Fiddler on the Roof and won the Hedda Award for this role.

In a December 2009 performance of his hit "Fairytale" at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert, held at the Oslo Spektrum, Rybak shared the stage with nine other acts.

[21] That same year, he recorded the theme song, called "I Don't Believe in Miracles/Superhero", for the Russian action movie Black Lightning produced by Timur Bekmambetov.

[22] On 30 January 2010, Rybak performed one of his new singles, "Europe's Skies", in the national final, Euroviisut 2010, to select the 2010 Finnish entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 2010.

[25] In 2011 he released the album Visa vid vindens ängar, a collaboration with Mats Paulson whom he describes as "a legend and a great friend" On 11 December 2011, he appeared as musical guest on X Factor (Romania).

The new track which will be released during the day is co-written by David Eriksen who is well known to fans of the Eurovision Song Contest for writing "Butterflies" for Tone Damli Aaberge which was the runner-up to Rybak in the 2009 Melodi Grand Prix.

Around the same time, it was revealed that Rybak wrote a song for Norwegian singer Annsofi for Melodi Grand Prix 2013.

Rybak had sent in the track unsolicited to film company DreamWorks, which was charmed by the song and decided to include it in the soundtrack for the closing credits.

[32] On 4 May 2014, he released a song alongside another Eurovision winner, Marija Šerifović, titled "Gorka Hrabrost" meaning "Bitter Bravery".

[36] On 26 December, MILKI finished fourth in the Belarusian national final, receiving the second-highest tally of votes from the public.

Despite initially refusing to portray female artists, Rybak impersonated Gloria Gaynor, Conchita Wurst, and Russian folk singer Lyudmila Ryumina, for which he received top marks from the jury.

[45] Rybak sang "Fairytale" during the final of You Decide, the preselection of the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017.

[46] That same year, Rybak teamed up with German singer and violinist Franziska Wiese and had a duet with her on his singles "Fairytale" and "Kotik", while also performing the former at the annual Schlagerboom festival.

[51] Rybak was not the bookmakers and experts' favourite to win the selection,[52] but topped several public polls ahead of the competition.

After the show, several news outlets claimed that Norwegian broadcaster NRK had favourised Rybak, putting him last in the running order.

In the final, on 12 May 2018, Rybak performed seventh in the running order and finished in fifteenth place, receiving a top jury score from Italy.

[55] In 2019, Rybak's children's musical Trolle og den magiske fela premiered in Kristiansand and received wide critical acclaim by reviewers.

[57] In 2020, Rybak co-wrote an entry for Melodi Grand Prix 2020 together with Jowst for singer Magnus Bokn called "Over the Sea".

The song won the fourth semi-final of the selection show and proceeded to the final, where it eventually lost out to Ulrikke Brandstorp's "Attention".

[64] In August 2020, Rybak announced that he had enrolled in Columbia College Chicago for an MFA degree in film music composition.

He was convinced to attend Columbia by Kubilay Uner, director of the film music composition MFA program.

[84] Rybak started working in a group for his children's musical Trolle og den magisken fela has helped him.

[85] In May 2020, Rybak revealed that he had been addicted to sleeping medications and antidepressants for 11 years, and had begun to recover after entering rehab in January.

[87] He graduated from Columbia in July 2022 [67] and has lived in Los Angeles until 2024, when he moved back to Norway due to "a very persistent stalker" in the US.