Germany has finally selected their act for Junior Eurovision 2023 as well as their song for the contest. Fia won the online national final organized by NDR with her song “Ohne Worte” today.
Based on the 1:18 snippet that could be accessed during the online voting phase of the national final, Ohne Worte seems to be a power ballad sung completely in German. This song was chosen as the winner of the national final through a combination of 50% online vote (whose participation is only limited to people in Germany, Switzerland and Austria) and 50% jury vote. The jury that voted in the national final consisted of the following:
- Kelvin Jones (Singer) – Zimbabwe/England
- Tom Gregory (Singer) – England
- Christopher (Singer) – Denmark
The three jury members were also joined in the jury voting by music experts from the United Kingdom, Portugal, Poland, France and Germany.
Fia is no stranger to competitive singing. She was after all, a finalist in The Voice Kids Germany’s 11th season under the team of Eurovision 2010 winner Lena Meyer-Landrut.
The full song as well as the music video to “Ohne Worte” will be released on October 13th.
Who is Fia?
According to Eurovision.de’s press release about the online national final results, Fia was born in Shanghai and was raised in Germany after the birth of her younger sister. She currently lives in Berlin and has two pet rabbits named Simba and Puschel. When asked about her hobbies, Fia states that it is “performing” and the press release describes her as the “entertainer in her family”. Besides performing, Fia enjoys climbing and swimming in her free time.
One signature characteristic of Fia’s performances is being able to sing in sign language while singing with vocals at the same time (as seen in her national final performance). Her ability to sing in sign language came from her desire to not have her sister (who is non-hearing) be left out when watching her performances.
Should Fia decide to sing in sign language in addition to singing vocally in Nice, she will be the first contestant from the Eurovision family of contests to perform her entire entry in sign language. The closest that this had been done were in:
- Poland’s Eurovision 2022 national final where Unmute joined with a song sung entirely in sign language
- Junior Eurovision 2019 where part of the choreography for the Polish entry was the song sung in sign language by the backing dancers.
- Eurovision 2015 where the backing singers of Bojana Stamenov performed the song in Yugoslav sign language during the staging; and
- Eurovision 2011 where the entrant for Lithuania, Evelina Saลกenko, performed a part of her song in sign language while singing vocally
Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2023 will take place on November 26, 2023 in Palais Nikaรฏa in Nice, France. The contest will be aired in Germany via KiKa.
For more Junior Eurovision 2023 news, click here.
