All posts by Roy van der Merwe

Eesrti Laul 2018

EESTI LAUL 2018

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Written by Andy Mihkeev

Estonia’s biggest music contest – Eesti Laul celebrates its Tin Jubilee! For the tenth time Estonia’s best authors and musicians have the opportunity to make history and show off their talent to Estonia, Europe and beyond!

Song submission is now open with a deadline of 3pm sharp on November 1st.

“Everybody is welcome! It doesn’t matter if you’re an established artist or a complete newcomer – the most important thing is that your song gives us something unique in 180 seconds,” said Eesti Laul producer, Mart Normet.

“Eesti Laul is a celebration of Estonian music and has grown into an Estonian institution. It is our aim that we showcase a wide variety of Estonian artists that are bravely representing themselves and their music.”

One author or group of authors can participate in competition with up to 3 songs and one artist can present up to three songs. As usual, the length of the song must not exceed 3 minutes.

Foreign authors and musicians welcome to be involved, but at least half of the team must be Estonian citizens or residents.

Both lyrics and music must be new and cannot have been published before September 1st.

Full Eesti Laul rules and participation form is available on the official Eesti Laul website www.eestilaul.ee

Songs that are chosen to progress to the semi-finals will be presented on December 19th and 20th via www.eestilaul.ee website

The Semi-Finals will be held on February 10th and 17th with the Eesti laul 2018 finale once again taking place at Saku Suurhall on March 3rd.

“Almost half of the arena is already sold out,” said Tarmo Hõbe, CEO of Saku Suurhall and co-producer of Eesti Laul.

Tickets to the Eesti Laul 2018 finale at Saku Suurhall are available at http://www.piletilevi.ee/est/piletid/kogupere/show/eesti-laul-2018-215407/

Afrimusic song contest

AFRI MUSIC SONG CONTEST – TOBI JOOSTE

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Time to look at the next Afrikaans artist who has registered to take part in the first Afri music song contest and have done Eurovision covers. It is Tobi Jooste who has done at least 11 Eurovision covers.

01 – Iceland 2004 (Afrikaans)
02 – Netherlands 1981 (Afrikaans)
03 – Switzerland 1988 (Afrikaans)
04 – Romania 2008 (Afrikaans)
05 – Ukraine 2003 (Afrikaans/English)
06 – Malta 2005 (Afrikaans)
07 – Malta 2006 (Afrikaans)
08 – Malta 2006 (English)
09 – Norway 2010 (Afrikaans)
10 – Norway 2010 (Italian)
11 – Latvia 2007 (English) in duet with Gloria Bosman

He also writes original songs, but lets hope he enters a euro cover and an original song.

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2017 Junior Eurovision Song Contest

JUNIOR EUROVISION 2017 – NETHERLANDS

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A BOY BAND – yes for the very first time a boy band will represent The Netherlands at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. Four boys – Max (14), Jannes (14), Niels (12) & Ian (13) make up Fource. They won the Dutch ticket to the Junior Eurovision 2017 in Tbilisi. The song for the four boys will be announced at a later stage.

Right after the boys were selected for the semi-final, they asked the public to help them come up with a name for the boy band. Many fans submitted their ideas and eventually they chose the name FOURCE. The name refers to the group of four and their strength. Will they have the strength to win in Tbilisi?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0USR7qmfB80

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Melodifestival

SWEDISH SELECTION 2006 – KIKKI DANIELSSON

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Time to showcase another of the CD singles from Melodifestival that ESCCovers obtained last month in Oslo via a OGAE Norway fan that got rid of her collection. This time it is KIKKI DANIELSSON and her song IDAG & IMORGON who has Thomas Gson among others as composer. It was in the 2006 selection. The second track on it is Kikki singing Yesterday once more of the Carpenters.

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Junior Eurovision

CYPRUS 2017 JUNIOR EUROVISION

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CyBC, the broadcaster of Cyprus, has announced the name of their representative for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2017 in Georgia. Nicole Nicolaou has been internally chosen by the broadcaster to represent Cyprus on November 26 in Tbilisi. The young performer will sing the song “I Wanna Be A Star” written by Constantinos Christoforou. Constantinos has represented Cyprus at the Eurovision Song Contest as a solo singer in 1996 with “Mono yia mas” and 2005 with “Ela Ela (come baby)” and as a member of the band One in 2002 with “Gimme”.

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Malta 2018

MALTA 2018 EUROVISION – shortlisted 30 songs

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MALTA has announced the 30 SHORTLISTED SONGS for Eurovision 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal.

Here are the 30 songs in alphabetical order of the artists

Abire Sekkaki – “Casablanca Love”
Aidan – “Dai Laga”
Aidan – “See You”
Avenue Sky – “We Can Run”
Brooke Borg – “Heart Of Gold”
Christabelle Borg – “Taboo”
Dan – “If Only”
Danica Muscat – “One Step At A Time”
Deborah C – “Turn It Up”
Deborah C & Joseph Tabone – “Human”
Dominic Cini – “Picture I Draw”
Eleanor Cassar – “Back to Life”
Ishmael Grech – “Good Times”
Jasmine Abela – “Supernovas”
Kelsey Bellante – “Super Woman”
Kevin Paul Calleja – “Great Adventure”
Kimberley Cortis – “Monsters”
Kurt Anthony Cassar – “You Will Find Me”
Lawrence Gray – “Love Renegade”
Malcolm Pisani – “Kiss”
Matthew Caruana – “Call 2morrow”
Mikhail Attard & Cherylis Camileri – “Breaking Point”
Miriana Conte – “Rocket”
Nicole Azzopardi – “Mixed Feelings”
Petra Whiteford – “Evolution”
Raquel Galdes – “In My Mind”
Rhiannon Micallef – “Beyond Blue Horizons”
Richard Joe Micallef – “Song For Dad”
Stefan Galea – “Closer”
Tiziana Calleja – “First Time”

As usual an interesting list of artists and song titles. Looks like just one of the 30 songs is in Maltese, the rest in English.

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Afri friend

AFRI FRIEND AWARDS – CATEGORY ONE – BEST FULL CD BY A MALE SINGER

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We start off with the first of ten categories of the AFRI FRIEND awards 2017. The category is BEST FULL CD BY A MALE SINGER.

The criteria for CD’s to be considered are

a – Obviously it has to be by a male singer (although a couple of duets are allowed on the CD)

b – 60% or more of the songs have to be in Afrikaans

c – At least one song has to be cover (Eurovision or otherwise)

d – Released after 1 January 2016 but before 31 October 2017

So far 4 CD’s are being considered (and as we discover more that fulfill the criteria, they will be added to this post

01 – DEON GROOT – GEE MY OOR

02 – DIRK LAZENBY – SONSKYN LIEFDE

03 – ERNIE BATES – DROOM

04 – ANDRE VAN WYNGAARDT – DIE ENGELE HAAL ASEM

ADDING

05 – HENRY VAN DYK – SOMMER SO

Selection song

SWEDISH SELECTION SONG – DET VACKRASTE

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It took almost 22 years but finally the CD single of the 1995 selecting song DET VACKRASTE by Cecilia Vennersten is in the ESC Covers collection. This song was a major hit and many fans thought it was better than the actual song SE PA MEJ by Jan Johansen. Both rank among the best songs ever to come from Sweden. This song in various covers are already in the collection

One more time- Living in a dream (English)

Frans Bauer – ‘n Lied voor iedereen (Dutch)

Dana Winner – I’ll sing a song today (English)

Dana Winner – Ik zing vandaag een lied (Flemish)

Dana Winner – Ein lied for diese welt (German)

And hopefully an Afrikaans cover can be added soon

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