Press Release

“I love my staging, it's absolutely cool! Obviously, the inspiration behind it is my entry song, ‘Truth'. The idea is that my heart is broken and I need to replace it with a bionic one,” says Chingiz about his Eurovision staging. “Some robot helps me literally get rid of it and forget about my ex. I realize that only accepting the truth and leaving my toxic love behind can heal me.”

With Chingiz alone on stage, unique graphics help the artist tell his dramatic love story. The images are delivered by Front Pictures creative studio, who also created visuals for Jamala’s Eurovision 2016 winning act, put together stunning performances at America’s Got Talent and, most recently, collaborated with P!nk at The BRIT Awards 2019. To create the stage video for Chingiz’s performance, the Azerbaijani delegation worked with GST, a leading Moscow-based production company that produces some of the biggest events in the region.

The stage director for 'Truth' is Mads Enggaard, an experienced Eurovision professional who previously served as Eurovision 2017 viewing room producer and 2019 Danish Melodi Grand Prix contest producer.

“The idea of the "Truth" staging is visually impressive and strikingly bold,” said Azerbaijan’s Head of Delegation, Husniye Maharramova, “Azerbaijan has participated in Eurovision for 11 years, and you have seen a lot of memorable, fiery and even romantic stagings by our delegation. But this is something totally new and emotional from us. I’m really looking forward to seeing how viewers relate to the story on May 16th."

Chingiz’s performance will serve as an anticipated closing act of the Eurovision 2019 semi-finals - 'Truth' is the 18th and final song in the running order of the second semi-final.

Ester Peony
At the age of 25, Ester Alexandra Cretu, known as Ester Peony, is a Romanian singer and songwriter who has discovered her passion for music since childhood when she lived with her family in Montreal, Canada. She started to study Jazz singing at the age of 8, and four years later, when she returned in Romania, Ester started Dinu Lipatti School in Pitesti, piano section. At the age of 13 she transferred to classic guitar section until the ninth grade, when she continued her studies at the classic singing section.

In 2013 she enrolled at the Music Interpretation Faculty in Bucharest where she studied Jazz. A year later, Ester begins composing music for artists such as DJ Rynno, Sylvia, Tamy and Pepe, both in the mainstream and underground. In the winter of the same year, Ester released alongside Ana Baniciu, Puya, Doddy, Vescan and Mahia "Cuminte de Craciun".

She released covers such as "Derniere Danse" (Indila), "My Heart Is Refusing Me" (Loreen), and in 2015, her first single, "Sub aripa ta" (Vescan), that conquered the music charts and gathered over 16 million views on YouTube. Also, in 2015 the artist continued to collaborate with Vescan and launched with him, Alan and Kepa the track “Oameni". In 2016, she collaborated with Phelipe and released "1000 de motive", track and video that generated nearly 3 million views on YouTube.

In the summer of 2016, Ester went in her first tour, "Noi sa fim sanatosi!”, alongside Puya, Vescan, Doddy and Anastasia, organized in the big cities of Romania. In 2017, Ester had dedicated her time to music and she has written pieces for different artists, but also for her. At the beginning of 2018, she released "Dig it," an EP containing four tracks: “On My Way”, “So Fine”, “Leaving Tomorrow” and “Dig It”, and a few months later, Ester alongside Alexandru Serbu and Ioana Victoria Badea have written "On a Sunday", the submitted song in the grand competition of the Eurovision National Selection 2019. The single combines the guitar sound with the fresh lyrics that complement the dark mood with a message: Love becomes dangerous when it’s given to the wrong person.

Further, Ester has won the big race and she is set to represent Romania at Tel Aviv in May 2019. Currently Ester continues her singing classes and she’s working on her first album that will be released in 2019.

Alexandru Șerbu
The guitar is Alex „Bolero” Serbu’s great passion. He has studied the quitar at Dinu Lipatti Music Highschool from Bucharest and continued at the Music University from Bucharest . In paralell, Alex is also involved in the musical production, having his debut in 2013 with the song "Two Fools", interpreted by Simona Nae. Meanwhile, he is a producer and collaborated with big names from the Romanian musical industry, such as: Ester, Dj Rynno, Sylvia, Claudia Pavel, Phelipe, Tamy, Pepe, Cristina Vasiu, Gipsy Casual, Starchild, Annely Cole, Alexandra Stan, JerryCo, Roberta, Francisca, Ionica Morosanu. Alex is the musical producer of the song "On a Sunday", which will represent Romania at the Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv. Alex will play a double role on the Eurovision stage: musical producer and guitarist.

This year's UK Eurovision contestant, Michael Rice, is 65.8% Irish, Scottish and Welsh, 30.3% North and West European, 2.8% Scandinavian, and 1.1% Finnish! He's from Hartlepool, a lovely seaside town in northeastern England not far from Scotland, which may explain why his UK heritage is Irish, Scottish and Welsh rather than English. We found 4,256 relatives of Michael's from 30 countries all over the world in our records, many of them from Anglophone countries such as the US, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Ireland, but also from places as far-flung as Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. The closest match we found is Louise Dent from Ireland, who shares 0.9% of his DNA, making her a 3rd, 4th, or 5th cousin of Michael's. Louise's family tree comprises 983 people.

Cyprus artist, Eleni Foureria, has been emerged to win the Eurovision Song Contest with her song Fuego on Saturday’s final. A-P Records and Panik Records are the labels behind the song that has been written by a team of Swedish songwriters and distributed via Record Union.

On Saturday May 12th, the final of the 2018 edition of Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Lisbon, Portugal. Among the finalists stands Eleni Foureria from Cyprus, together with the record labels A-P Records and Panik Records. The song Fuego has, among others of Eleni Fourerias songs, been distributed on Record Union’s platform.

- Record Union is happy to work as a distribution partner to A-P Records and Panik Records. We’re very excited to watch and follow Eleni Foureria in the Eurovision Song Contest final on Saturday and we'll keep our fingers crossed for a win in Lisbon, says Johan Svanberg, CEO at Record Union.

Behind Fuego stands a team of Swedish songwriters: Alex Papaconstantinou, Geraldo Sandell, Anderz Wrethov, Viktor Svensson and David “Didrick” Franzén.

Ukrainian representative MELOVIN takes the Eurovision stage for his first rehearsal on May 2nd at the ‎Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal.

Impressive and literally fiery stage performance has all the potential to become the most discussed at this year’s Eurovision. After the furious staging at the national selection, MELOVIN brought to Lisbon turned on its head version of his entry song ‘Under the Ladder’. The stage act’s idea realised together with a Ukrainian stage director Konstantin Tomilchenko, who also staged Jamala’s winning “1944” performance back at Eurovision 2016.

Probably the most avant-garde and theatrical props of the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest is a two-level gigantic piano brought to Lisbon by the Ukrainian delegation. The complex installation serves as a hidden spot for the singer at the very beginning of the staging and as music instrument on fire closer to the end. These props need a very sophisticated technical support. If operation button pressed a half second earlier or later there is a chance for MELOVIN to damage himself seriously. And let’s not forget about the fire need to be released exactly when the singer starts playing the piano.

‘Nothing but your will sets you on fire. Fire lasts forever’ - this line from my song inspired Konstantin Tomilchenko and me to create this theatrical staging. I wanted to keep the fire but kind of escalate the whole props story to another level. With Konstantin we share the same vision of how exactly my performance should look like and I also love what he’d done for Jamala, - MELOVIN says.

‘The installation looks impressive, and that’s exactly what we want to bring to Eurovision stage. I’m really worried about how it’s all gonna work together,’ – shares Konstantin Tomilchenko. – ‘We need to take extra cautions during rehearsals and at the Semi-Final.’

The outcome of the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest will be decided bythe public, alongside a group of expert juries in each of the 43 participating countries. Today EBU has announced the names of the 215 music industry professions who will cast their votes in the Semi-Finals and Grand Final of this year's contest.

⬇️ Download the full list of jury members (.pdf)
https://service.accredion.com/file/b1c27e16-2af7-4a93-89dc-7eb736a988f5…

Each national jury is made up of five music industry professionals who will evaluate each entry. The jury members are asked to judge the vocal capacity of the singer, the performance on stage, the composition and originality of the song and the overall impression of the act. Jurors rank all entries, except their own country's contribution.

There are strict admission rules in order to become a member of the jury.
Members of the jury must not have been part of the jury in the previous two years;
Members of the jury must be at least 16 years old on the day they vote;
Members of the jury must not be employees of Participating Broadcasters;
Members of the jury must pursue a profession in or related to the music industry;
Members of the jury shall be citizens of the country they represent;
No member of a jury shall be connected in any way with any of the participating songs entered and/or artists performing in the contest in such a way that they cannot vote in complete independence and impartiality.
Juries are selected by the Participating Broadcaster that represents each country. For example; the Belgian jury is appointed by VRT, while the Greek jury is appointed by the ERT, and so on.

A total of 215 jurors — five in each of the 43 participating countries — will vote. Each broadcaster also appoints a backup juror, in case one of the five jury members becomes unavailable (not listed).
The youngest juror, aged 16, comes from Estonia. The oldest, at 74, is part of the Croatian jury;
The average age of the jurors is 40.8 years old, just a few months older than last year's average;
102 jurors are female, 113 are male;
Georgia, Lithuania and Montenegro all invited professors to their jury.
Several of this year's jurors have previously participated in the Eurovision Song Contest.
The list includes two winners; Emmelie de Forest won the contest 2013 for Denmark and Niamh Kavanagh won the 1993 contest for Ireland;
Bob Savenberg, who represented Belgium as part of the group Clouseau in 1991;
Hanne Haugsand, who represented Norway as part of the group Charmed in 2000;
Tom Dice, who represented Belgium in 2010;
Cristina Scarlat, who sang for Moldova in 2014;
Bojana Stamenov, who represented Serbia in 2015;
Aminata Savadogo, who represented Latvia in 2015;
Amber, who represented Malta in 2015;
Laura Tesoro, who represented Belgium in 2016.

Ukrainian singer released the music video for his Eurovision entry song ‘Under the Ladder’. The shooting took place in Kyiv and lasted about 24 hours with challenging fire scenes nearly stop the whole process and left the singer with burned hands.

After his fiery staging at the national selection, no wonder MELOVIN wanted to carry on the burning theme in his mysterious music video. The saying goes “If you play with fire, you're gonna get burned” which had almost literally happened with the singer on the set. According to the director’s idea, witchy femme fatale, played by Top Model of the World 2017 Julia Gershun, wants to seduce MELOVIN and convert him to the dark side. However, the singer is strong enough to her enchantment and breaks himself from bonds closer to the end of the music video with spectacular playing-the-piano-on-fire scenes. For greater reality team used the real fire on hands with special protection.

“At some point, I just felt like my hands are actually on fire and asked to check if the protection is still working. Needless to say, it all nearly gone by that time due to the endless takes. Out team fixed everything, we finished the shooting without burning flash and I love the result. What is this video about? It’s about the resistance and the re-birth, growth and releasing your inner power,” - MELOVIN says.

This afternoon, our Eurovision candidate Sennek took the airplane to Lisbon. She and our Belgian delegation land there tonight, and Sennek will rehearse tomorrow for the first time on the Eurovision stage tomorrow.

A lot of Belgian press came to wave Sennek off and to ask her for a final reaction before her flight. Peter Van de Veire, the Belgian radio host who will provide the commentary for Belgium during the live shows, was also there to wave her off.
Tomorrow Sennek wil have her first rehearsal on the stage, with her full outfit and the act. This will be the first time that her outfit is revealed.

Here you can find pictures of Sennek’s departure at Brussels Airport: https://we.tl/ASpFLdITRC (copyright is VRT/Sofie Silbermann)

Sennek will perform her song A Matter Of Time in the first semi-final on Tuesday the 8th of May.

The song “New children” has a strong message that speaks about new and modern generations that are able to change the world into a better and more beautiful place, where love and peace leads. The reggae arrangement of the song happened spontaneously during the group’s studio session and they decided to leave it that way.

The author of the English lyrics is Serbian producer, songwriter and artist Luke Black whose song “Demons” was one of the potential representatives for Serbia in 2016.

Sanja Ilic & Balkanika will perform third at the second semi final on May 10th. They will perform the Serbian version of their entry on the Eurovision stage with 6 performers - three female vocalists, one male vocalist, a percussionist and a flute player. They will wear costumes by Serbian fashion designer Nevena Ivanovic (Neodesign) and choreography will be by Milan Gromilić. They will also work with director Gorčin Stojanović, who made the winning Eurovision performance of Marija Šerifović with song “Molitva” in Helsinki.

Video:

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Dear All,

Claudia Faniello, would like to thank you for taking the time to come to her Press Conference, Meet and Greet and interview her.

She is very grateful for all the support you showed to her so far and hope that you will continue to support her through Semi final 2.

VOTE for MALTA......Song Number 4...... Breathlessly

Rodianne Caligari
HEAD OF PRESS for MALTA