Ani Lorak was selected to represent Ukraine to Eurovision Song Contest 2008. During the National final, Ani will perform four songs on February 16th. The public will have to choose which one of the song to represent Ukraine.

The titles of the songs are:
I’m your woman (music and lyrics: Bozhena Kostroms’ka)
The dream of a bright day (music: Ani Lorak, lyrics: Yuriy Suc)
Shady lady (music: Philip Kirkorow, lyrics: Karen Kavaleryan)
Ya stanu morem (music: Vitaliy Volkomor, lyrics: Nikolay Brovchenko)

The show for the Ukrainian final will be choreographed by Olena Kolyadenko, her fashion designer will be Angela Lisytsa. She will be supported by male dancers, too.

After the world premiere of Ruslana’s show “Wild Energy” in Azerbaijan national final, today she said “I was very happy that the premiere of my new show took place in Baku. Azerbaijan is a very special country with ancient and beautiful traditions. Fantastic people live there. It was a big surprise for me that almost half of the audience were filming our performance with their mobile phones and digital cameras. In the first few seconds I thought it was a special light effect in the arena.”

Then she added: “In Baku we presented only a piece of the new show. Still, in those 30 minutes, we tried to show my new performance character, which is Amazonka, the Amazon, a wild and independent woman who gradually falls in love as the show unfolds. We have worked on this show for a long time already. Our goal was to create a truly professional performance. It has been more than 3 years that we’ve worked on it. And I can honestly tell you that my heart and soul are in it.”

 BBC confirmed that there will be no press launch this year for United Kingdom Eurovision Song Contest. It is expected in the next week more details to be released through the press office.

In the last years, a press launch has been organized and the participating artists in he national final have been announced three weeks earlier. That was opportunity the press to meet the participating artists and to hear their songs.

Any details about the location and date of the show are not announced yet and the broadcaster may surprise with something new and different.

 In Czech Republic a private TV channel  is claiming that the victory of Teresa Kerndlova was influenced by a company called Icom. It is possible that the employees were told to vote continuously by SMS.

The national broadcaster strongly refused that allegation, saying ” “There was no problem whatsoever with the televoting during our national final. There is no intention of disqualifying Tereza who is extremely upset by the whole incident. The story was initiated by a private TV channel, based on an anonymous email and another anonymous statement.

Tereza is currently working hard on her show for Belgrade. Her latest album was indeed sponsored by Icom but this is a common thing and in no way means that the company encouraged the employees to vote for Tereza. The management of the company themselves have denied any attempt to influence their employee’s votes.”

 Tickets for the United Kingdom Eurovision Song Contest selection show are available to apply online. The working title of the show is “Making your mind up”. It will be recorded on Saturday, March 1st at BBC Centre, London.

 Those of you who want to be in the audience also can apply online. A person can not apply for more then 6 tickets.

Last night was announced the running order of the upcoming Beovizija final.The show Evropsko Lice was hosted by TV persons and Serbian famous artists. Mari Mari, Ivica Klemenci  Olivera Kovacevic,Darko Kamaritc Srdjan Predojevic, Sandra Šuša  and Gorica Popovic took part.

Twenty artists will compete at the semi final. Only ten of them will go to the final on the next day.

The running order is:
1. Alektik and Cveta Majtanović - “Iznad nas”
2. Drum’n'Zez - “Dunav”
3. Negativ - “S tobom bih ostala”
4. Mogul - “Mozda baÅ¡”
5. Nenad Ceranic - “Slepa ulica”
6. Betty Boop - “Kvar”
7. Sloba Bajić - “Prečica do dna”
8. Aleksa Jelic and Ana Å tajdohar - “Beli jablan”
9. Beauty Queens - “Zavet”
10. Andrej Ilić Bend - “Tijana”
11. Lejla Hot - “Da si tu”
12. Ivana CosiC - “Kao da hodam”
13. Tamara Nikezic - “Nisi prvi”
14. Dejan Vozlic - “Ako me cujeÅ¡”
15. Zana - “U zivot kockam se”
16. Marko Vulinovic - “Sada ili nikada”
17. Zoe Kida u Zemlji Gruva - “Cudesni svetovi”
18. Ognjen and prijatelji - “Cucemo, Cucete”
19. Denis and Obule - “Bezimena”
20. Jelena TomaÅ¡evic - “Oro”

Maria Haukaas Storeng won the Norwegian national final for Eurovision Song Contest and will represent her country in Belgrade. She won the competition with her song ” Hold on, be strong”. She qualified to the final of Melodi grand Prix and there she beat the other candidates with her melodic song. To the Super Final were sent four songs and there she won by a landslide with more then 80 000 votes then Torstein Sødal.

Maria Haukaas Storeng 195.661 votes - “Hold on be strong”
Torstein Sødal 118.095 votes - “Eastern wind”
Veronica Akselsen - “Am I supposed to love again”
King of Trolls - “Far away”

On the national final in Moldova was decided Geta Burlacu to represent the country to Eurovision Song Contest 2008 in Belgrade.

She performed her melodic jazzy song “A century of love” perfectly and won the professional jury. The audience’s undisputed favorite was Alexa who won more then 3 000 votes, but left on second place.

Csézy will represent her country in the Belgrade. She won the Hungarian national final. She will sing her song in the second semi final of Eurovision Song Contest 2008 on May 22nd. On the final the jury gave one point more to Adrien Szekeres.

The results according the jury are:
15 points - Adrien Szekeres - “Piszkos tánc”
14 points - Csézy - “Szívverés”
13 points - Antal Zsuzsa & Fishers Company - “Falak között”
12 points - Pflum Orsi – “Távol”
11 points - Vágó Zsuzsi Zsuzsi Mészáros Árpád Zsolt - “Két szív”
10 points - Gál Csaba Boogie - “Úgy figyeltelek”
9 points - Mónika Hoffman - “Légy te az Elso”
8 points - Lola - “Legszebb nap”
7 points - Fiesta - “Gyplölve szeretni”
6 points - Orsi Szatmari - “Véletlen”
5 points - 21 gramm - “Még egy dal”
4 points - Imre Zsuzsa - “Érintés”
3 points - Candies - “Van aki nyer”
2 points - Dure - “Nem ismerlek már”
1 point - EZ ONE zenekar - “Lesz ki hazavár”

Hungary will choose who will represent the country to Eurovision Song Contest 2008 tonight. Jury and audience vie televoting will select the winner among the 15 candidates.  The national final will start at 20.10 CET.

The participants in running order are:
EZ ONE zenekar – “Lesz ki hazavár”
Lola – “Legszebb nap “
Imre Zsuzsa – Érintés “
Vágó Zsuzsi Zsuzsi Mészáros Árpád Zsolt – “Két szív”
Fiesta – “Gyűlölve szeretni”
Antal Zsuzsa & Fishers Company – “Falak között” –
Dure – “Nem ismerlek már”
21 gramm – “Még egy dal”
Gál Csaba Boogie – “Úgy figyeltelek” 
Candies – “Van aki nyer”
Adrien Szekeres – “Piszkos tánc”
Mónika Hoffman – “Légy te az Első”
Orsi Szatmari – “Véletlen”
Csézy – “Szívverés”
Pflum Orsi – “Távol”

TVP, the Polish national broadcaster, after weeks of speculations, finally revealed the three wild cards. To the Polish national final, Piosenka dla Eiropy, have been given the opportunity to participate to Izabela Kopec, Natasza Urbanska and Zywiolak.

Natasza Urbanska is well known from the TV Chanel 1 and the show “The Hit Night or Golden Saturday”. She will perform song called “Blow up”. It is composed by Rickey Fernand.

The unique band Zywiolak will perform the song “Noc Pupaly”. It is composed by Robert Wasilewski. The band performs songs in hard folk. They are passionate about folk art and midieval instruments.

[Read more…]

Daniela Nane and Iulian Vrabete will host the first semi final of Eurovision Song Contest in Romania.

The songs that will fight for the places on the final are:

“Pe-o margine de lume” -  Nico & Vlad Miriţă

“La storia della pioggia” - Innesa & Millenium

“Te iubesc” - Adrian Enache

“Dr Frankenstein” - LaGaylia Frazier (Sweden)

[Read more…]

Eurovision Song Contest is one of the most popular and best organized annual competitions. In USA, there are many similar, but no one is so favorite and with so many participants from different parts of the continent.

The countries, active members of European Broadcasting Union, each year submit a song to be performed on live television show. Each country has the chance to choose the best singer, who can popularize his country and music, not only around Europe but and in the rest of the world. Because Eurovision Song Contest has many fans in the different parts of the world. As one of the most watched events, Eurovision is broadcasted in Australia, New Zealand, India, Canada, South Africa, Hong Kong and many other counties outside Europe, despite the fact that these countries do not compete. It is enough to say that in 2006 Eurovision Song Contest has been watched in 140 countries via internet.
The successful and modern televoting system has been placed in 1975. Since then the audience can vote for their favorite singers via televoting and in our days by SMS, in addition. In case of televoting failure, there is jury who can take the final decision.

Very good is the rule that the countries may not cast their vote for the song from their own country. It gives equal chances to all participating countries to win the most popular Song Contest in the last 51 years.

Azerbaijan will take part in Eurovision Song Contest for first time in 2008. Elnur Gusseinov was selected to represent his country.

He performed two songs to the national final. “If you are never back” and “Day after day” are the songs that reached the final. On February 15th will be decided which of these song will represent Azerbaijan for first time in Eurovision Song Contest 2008.

Melodi Grand Prix was held in Denmark. The regional televoting decided Simon Mathew to represent the country to Eurovision Song Contest 2008. His song “All night long” is written by Jacob Launbjerg, Nis Bøgvad and Svend Gudiksen.

The results from the national final are:
48 points - Simon Mathews - “All night long”
46 points - UNITE - “Tree of life”
42 points - Sandee May - “Spanish soul”
16 points - Kendra Lou - “Until we’re satisfied”
16 points - The Dreams - “La’ mig være”
10 points - Hassing - “Come on over”
8 points - Amin Jensen - “Luciano”
8 points - Josefine & Lars - “Sweet memories of you”
6 points - Lasse Lindorff - “Hooked on you”
0 points - Charlie - “Den jeg er”