The running order for The 2013 Eurovision Song Contest Semi-Finals has now been announced. This is the position in which the 33 nations will perform on May 14 and 16.
First Semi-Final: 14 May, 2013
The United Kingdom, Sweden and Italy will vote in this semi-final. Ten of the following songs will qualify for the final on May 18.
Second Semi-Final: 16 May, 2013
Spain, France and Germany will vote in this semi-final. Ten of the following songs will qualify for the final on May 18.
The Italian entry for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest has now been made public. As was already announced during the San Remo final, Marco Mengoni is the singer for Italy and he will be singing that competition’s winning song, L’Essenziale (The Essential One).
Already a big selling hit in Italy, the song will be sung entirely in Italian. It’s written by Mengoni together with Roberto Casalino and Francesco De Benedettis.
Do you think Italy has a chance of winning this year?
The concluding national final of the 2013 Eurovision season took place this evening and Moldova has chosen its representative. Fourteen acts took part and a combination of televoting and a jury decided the winning entry: Aliona Moon will sing A Million in Sweden.
Ms. Moon is no stranger to the Eurovision stage as she was a backing singer for Pasha Parfeny in the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest. Having written the song, he now plays piano on this track and will take to the stage with her in Malmö, as she takes lead vocal.
This is the result, with televoting points in brackets and the winner in bold:
What do you think of the song from Moldova?
Farid Mammadov to Sing Hold Me For Azerbaijan
After what seemed like a miserable selection of songs (and singers) from Azerbaijan, an internal jury chose Farid Mammadov and the song Hold Me as its representative for Eurovision in Malmö.
Azerbaijan will take part in the first part of the second semi-final on May 16.
What do you think of Azerbaijan’s choice?
Bulgaria has announced that its national winning song, Kismet, will no longer be going to Malmö. The Bulgarian national broadcaster has issued a statement today outlining the reasons for a change of Eurovision song to Samo Shampioni (Only Champions).
Bulgarian National Television (BNT) has been forced to withdraw the song Kismet from the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest, after it was chosen to represent Bulgaria through a transparent process that involved established music professionals and an audience vote.
The decision was made after it became clear that BNT could not reach an agreement about copyright, in accordance with the requirements of the international competition, with one of the authors of the song, Jonatan Tesei, a musician and producer from Argentina. BNT was misinformed by the Bulgarian producer of the song Kismet, that all copyright issues had been settled and a declaration to this effect was deposited with BNT.
Only after the song was chosen, on March 3 2013, BNT was informed that Jonatan Tesei was not consulted about the final version of the song. In line with the requirements of the contest, BNT must provide a final audio track version, with no further adjustments, by March 18 2013.
For these reasons, BNT has decided that it will enter the song “Only Champions” in Eurovision 2013. This song won the jury vote and was second among viewers’ preferences. A withdrawal by BNT at this stage would mean having to pay penalties.
Elitsa Todorova and Stoyan Yankulov support this decision and state that they will give their best to represent Bulgaria with honour.
BNT thanks again all of its viewers who took part in the choice of the Bulgarian song for Eurovision 2013, as well as all other fans of the contest, who are excited by the chance for Bulgarian performers to represent the country’s musical traditions on the world stage.
Elitsa & Stoyan will present this second choice song in the first half of the second Semi-Final on May 16.
What do you think of this substitute song?
It’s been nine years since the Netherlands qualified for the final of the Eurovision Song Contest. Anouk Teeeuwe is hoping to change that with the song Birds, which has been made public today.
Anouk: It’s Birds For the Netherlands – Image by Dotblend [GFDL or CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
And so here is Birds which Anouk will sing in the first Semi-Final of the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Malmö, Sweden on May 14.
What do you think of the song and can The Netherlands qualify this year?
Out of a field of ten acts, Moran Mazor won the combined jury and public vote at the final of KDAM 2013 in Jerusalem. Her song Rak bishvilo (Only For Him) will now represent Israel in Malmö. The last time Israel triumphed at Eurovision was in 1998 when Diva International took the title with Diva.
Can Moran Mazor do the same in 2013?
A little earlier than anticipated, the BBC has announced that 70s/80s power balladeer Bonnie Tyler will sing for the UK with the song Believe in Me. It will be included on her forthcoming album Rocks & Honey, which is due to be released in the UK on May 6 and in Europe on March 8.
The last time that Bonnie hit the British charts was in 1995 when she peaked at Number 45 with Making Love Out of Nothing At All. Her last Top 10 hit was Holding Out For A Hero in 1984.
Listen to Bonnie Tyler sing the UK entry Believe in Me.
Image: By MadonnaGaynor (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Another busy Eurovision Saturday evening has come to a close with a further three nations deciding upon their songs for Malmö: Estonia, Georgia and Hungary.
In Estonia, ten songs were featured in the Final held in Tallinn’s Nokia Music Hall. From a mix of televoting and jury votes, the field was narrowed to two songs in a Super Final that was won by Birgit Õigemeel singing Et uus saaks alguse (a rough translation: In Order to Start Anew). Here it is:
Meanwhile, in Georgia, four songs were presented for public scrutiny. From a combination of jury and public votes, the song chosen was Lonely Planet sung by Gor Sujyan (along with his Dorians)and reportedly written by Black Sabbath guitarist, Tony Iommi.
Over in Budapest, Hungarian TV viewers were treated to an eight song final that was reduced to four by a panel of judges that included previous Hungarian Eurovision representatives. These four songs were then open to public vote with ByeAlex eventually winning with the song Kedvesem (Darling).
What do you think of these choices?
The Israeli Eurovision National Final will take place in Jerusalem on March 7 and the song line-up is almost complete.
Over the past three nights, thirty prospective candidates have battled it out in Israel’s national selection process: KDAM 2013. These have now been whittled down to nine entries, with one more to be decided this Sunday (March 3) from three second chance competitors. These are the songs and singers for the Second Chance Round:
One of these will join the nine other songs that have already been chosen for the final. They are:
Which of these songs would you like to see represent Israel?
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