“Around The Continent” is a series of posts where we will give you all the main news of the week
Albania held their national selection “Festivali i Këngës 59” this week.
The semi- finals have been held on Monday and Tuesday. While the grand final has been held on Wednesday night.
25 artists competed at the festival, 18 among them qualified for the final. After 3 shows, the winner was determined by the Albanian jury.
Anxhela Peristeri who performed “Karma” is the winner that will carry the Albanian flag at Eurovision 2021
The runner up is the young musician Sardi Strugaj who performed the rock song ” Ka me t’ba me kajt”
In the third place, it was Festina Mejzini with “Kush je ti, dashuri“
The public award (Tirana award) went to Evi Reçi – Tjerr
Although being a fan-favorite, Inis Neziri didn’t manage to end in top 3
Albania will compete in Semi-Final 2 of Eurovision 2021. It is still unknown whether the song will be revamped or not.
Vincent Bueno who will represent Austria at Eurovision 2021, was a special guest in an Austrian TV show this week.
The singer revealed the his intended song for Eurovision 2021 will be released in the beginning of March 2021
The head of the Croatian delegation Uršula Tolj announced that one-minute snippets of “Dora 2021” will be published a week before “Dora 2021“.
Dora 2021 will be the Croatian national selection for Eurovision 2021. It well be held on the 13th of February 2021.
14 acts will compete in the national selection:
- Albina – Tick-Tock
- Ashley Colburn & Bojan Jambrosic – Share the Love
- Bernarda – Colors
- Beta Sudar – Ma zamisli
- Brigita Vuco – Noći pijane
- Cambi – Zaljubljen
- Ella Oreskovic – Come This Way
- Eric – Reci mi
- Filip Rudan – Blind
- Mia Negovetic – She’s Like a Dream
- Nina Kraljić – Rijeka
- Sandi Censov – Kriv
- ToMa – Ocean Of Love
- Tony Cetinski & Kiki Rahimovski – Zapjevaj, sloboda je!
In addition. 4 other acts have been defined as back-ups:
- Elis Lovric – Brodolom
- Endi Feat. Lora – Megaloman
- PJERINO RUŽEVIĆ – Soldier
- Z/11 – Only Love
On last Tuesday, we have published our full review for the French national selection.
You can read it by clicking on the image:
Alexandra Wolfslast, head of the German delegation gave an interview to the German radio channel NDR Blue. In the interview, she revealed that the act for Eurovision 2021 has already been selected!
The act has been chosen through a complicated process. 2 jury panels were involved in the selection process. One jury panel included 100 Eurovision fans whose taste is predictable to be similar to the typical Eurovision voters. Another jury panel included former international Eurovision jury and participants.
The German broadcaster have received 300 songs for this year selection.
In the beginning, the Eurovision fans panel chose their favorites songs in a multiple rounds process. Thereafter, the international jury were involved. The list of acts (song+artists) has been narrowed from 300 to 200 to 100 to 50 to 20. The 20 final acts can include two different performers for a single song or 2 different songs that are performed by same artist/s.
The 20 final acts have been requested to send a video clip with the performance concept, in case they will represent Germany at Eurovision 2021.
The 2 jury panels had equal weight in the decision what will be the act for Eurovision 2021.
Alexandra Wolfslast didn’t mention when the song or the act will be revealed. However gave 2 interesting hints:
#1. The public will be very happy with the selected act
#2. Among the participants of the national selection, we could find established and popular artists.
The process was kept in secret in order to encourage established artists to compete for representing Germany at Eurovision. The process can ensure that artists won’t be afraid of the results, since only the winner is announced eventually.
#3. Several songs have been written in song-writing camps (one of them was in Sweden)
May we see a former Eurovision artist carry the flag for Germany at Eurovision 2021?
Daði Freyr and Gagnamagnið will represent Iceland at Eurovision 2021.
They were internally selected after winning in the national selection for Eurovision 2020.
A month ago, Daði revealed that he wrote 11 demo in order to create a song for Eurovision 2021.
On the 20th of December 2020, he announced that the he has finished to write the lyrics for Eurovision 2021 song.
He teased the readers with a blur image that includes part of the lyrics:
in addition, the singer will release a new song in the beginning of 2021.
The Lithuania broadcaster LRT revealed the 23 artists that will compete in “Pabandom iš naujo 2021” – The Lithuanian national selection for Eurovision 2021.
In 2021, the national selection will include only 4 shows (in contrast to last years when it included at least 6 shows): 2 heats, 1 semi-final and grand final.
Heat 1: 16th of January 2021
Heat 2: 23rd of January 2021
Semi-Final: 30th of January 2021
Final: 6th of February 2021
The 23 artists are:
- Aistė Brokenleg
- Aldegunda
- Donata Virbilaitė
- Evelina Sašenko
- Evita Cololo
- Gabrielė Goštautaitė
- Gabrielius Vagelis
- Gebrasy (Audrius Petrauskas)
- Gintarė Korsakaitė
- Martyna Jezepčikaitė
- Milita Daikerytė
- Cosmic bride (Natalja Chareckaja)
- Norbertas/Norbė
- Rapolas Meškauskas
- Thomas Tumosa
- Titas ir Benas
- Sunday Afternoon (Vilija Matačiūnaitė)
- Voldemaras Petersonas
- The Roop
- Twosome
- UnoBand
- Black Spikes with Indre Launikonyte
- Be U
Among the participants we can see 3 former Eurovision representatives:
The Roop
The band that won the national selection in 2020 with the song “On Fire” and should have represented Lithuania at Eurovision 2020 . Due to the band winning in Pabandom iš naujo 2020 and the cancellation of Eurovision 2020, the broadcaster decided to give them a direct path for the final
Evelina Sašenko
The singer represented Lithuania at Eurovision 2011 with the song “C’est Ma Vie“. She ended in 19th place in the grand final.
Vilija Matačiūnaitė
The singer represented the country at Eurovision 2014 with the song “Attention“. Unfortunately, she didn’t qualify for the final.
In addition, we can see some familiar names from former editions of the Lithuania selection:
Twosome
Aistė Brokenleg
Gabrielius Vagelis
Audrius Petrauskas
Ana Soklic who won “EMA 2020” (The national selection for Eurovision 2020) will represent Slovenia at Eurovision 2021. We would like to remind that a huge amount of 191 songs have been submitted to the Eurovision 2021 selection.
Aleksander Radić the head of the Slovenian delegation was interviewed this week to the podcast “Humans of Eurovision” (which is organised by Jan Bors, the former head of the Czech delegation).
You can see the full interview here:
In the interview, Aleksander said that in case where Scenario D will be fulfilled (Eurovision under lock-down with pre-recorded performances), Slovenia will postpone “EMA 2021″ as late as possible (it will be probably on 9th of March 2021). The broadcaster RTVSLO will record the pre-record performance in the same studio where EMA 2021 will be held on the day after the national selection. The reason for the is reducing costs of setting up and dismantling a stage.
A narrowed list of the competing songs will be published on the national broadcaster until the 31st of December 2020.
As we have already reported, The Swiss entry for Eurovision 2021 has already been selected.
In an interview to an Albanian radio station, the singer has reveled more details about the selection process for Eurovision 2021.
20 songs were written for this year’s selection process. The 20 songs were performed and recorded during a period 6 weeks. The decision of which song will be the Swiss entry for Eurovision 2021 was made by 2 jury panels: 20 international jury experts alongside 100 Eurovision fans.
The Swiss broadcaster looked for a modern song with clear message.
