Its time for the final question and in a few days I will re-cap all 12 questions in one post.
Of the countries missing at Eurovision 2015, I am the saddest about CROATIA. They provided three time my favourite of the year – 1995, 2004 and 2013. So the question is about Croatia. What year did they debut as an independent country at Eurovision?
The selection CD of Iceland 2015 is now available on Itunes
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In reaction to AUSTRALIA being allowed into EUROVISION 2015, I have now come up with an idea for 2016.
I have just written to RALPH SIEGEL to ask him to compose a song for NAMIBIA for 2016 and fund their entry into Eurovision 2016. After all, Namibia was a German protectorate and German is still widely spoken there. In the 70’s German singers like Heino and Tony Marshall had number one hits in their charts. Heino even sang a song about SOUTHWEST AFRICA as it was called before independence.
Finland began their process of selecting their Eurovision act and singer for Vienna last weekend. Six acts competed in the UMK and three made it through to the final.
The three to make it the final were –
Source: www.eurovision.tv
Australia will participate in the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest. This is a ‘one off’ event as part of the the 60th anniversary celebrations of the contest. It also fits in to the Eurovision theme this year of Building Bridges.
The broadcaster will be SBS and Australia will go straight to the final on 23 May in Vienna and will also be eligible to vote in both of the semi-finals. For many years now there has much much excitement and support from Australia for Eurovision. It will be a great occasion for them to join Europe in this massive event.
It has yet to be decided how Australia will select their song. SBS will provide more information soon.
In 2014 Australia played a significant part in one of the Eurovision semi-final interval act with an Oz theme. Jessica Mauboy performed Sea Of Flags to an excited audience.
Australia’s participation brings the amount of countries taking part to 40 in 2015.
Source: www.eurovision.tv
We are almost at the end. For the 11th question, lets go back to SWITZERLAND who hosted the first contest. Over the years they sang in all 4 their national languages. Peter, Sue & Marc represented them 4 times, each with a different language. The question is simple – name of our those 4 songs.
Neringa Šiaudikytė was a recent participant in the 2015 Lithuanian Eurovision selection. Despite leaving the show she is already involved in some exciting new projects.
Last weekend saw the premier of the Back To 90s show at the Macao club in Kaunas in Lithuania. Neringa performed with a group that also included Skaistė Steikūnaitė, Oksana Pikul and Vita Jakutienė. The girls performed retro songs to produce a happy and good feel for all taking part and watching the show. Neringa performed two solo songs. They were Alone and Ain’t Gonna Lie. There was a lot of media attention for this unique concert.
Besides the Back to 90s concert, Neringa is also performing solo concerts with her band. So things are looking great for Neringa and we also await more song releases from her in the near future.
You can hear Neringa’s song Alone below.
Source: www.esccovers.com
The second round of the 2015 Supernova competition has taken place in Latvia. 10 more acts participated and a combination of televoting and expert jury decided what four songs would make it to the next phase.
The 10 songs and acts were –
The four acts to qualify were Rihards Bērziņš and Euphony via the jury and Markus Riva and Aminita by televoting.
Source: www.eurovision.tv
We have just heard the news that a song composed by Danne Attlerud of Sweden is one of the songs in the 2015 Irish selection. I went Danne for the first time in 2004 in Istanbul when he composed (with others) the song for Norway that year – HIGH – which remains one of my top songs. I will dearly like Danne to be at Eurovision again, he has come so close several times, like with Malta in 2013 and Denmark in 2014. I can ask so many questions over this, but I will keep it easy – who sang HIGH for Norway in 2004?
