UKRAINE – Music producer Taras Shevchenko and singer Kateryna Pavlenko, the founding members of Go-A, can claim to have experienced so much in one year that they could not have imagined when in 2012 they timidly took their first steps as a band.
They participated in Vidbir 2020 with their song “Solovey” and although they started as an outsider, they managed with their electronic ethnic sound and with the Ukrainian language as an ally, to convince both their compatriots and the jury, who both gave them the golden ticket to Rotterdam.
The financial difficulties of Ukrainian television did not deter them and they carefully prepared their participation for the 65th Eurovision Song Contest.
However, COVID-19 pandemic that is affecting the universe was the reason for their trip to the largest port in Europe to be cancelled, or rather to be precise to get an extension of one year.
Ukrainian television was one of the first to announce its representative for the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest and they are none other than Go-A.
According to Taras Shevchenko in local media (nrcu.gov.ua), the Go-A found themselves in a music camp, organized by Unified Songs, in early July. Unified Songs is an organization that includes musicians and songwriters such as Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and Tiësto. Among the songwriters who participated in this camp was the team behind “Repondez-Moi” the participation of Gjon’s Tears in the Eurovision Song Contest for 2020.
“We worked from morning till night with Polish producer Mickey Tribulets and British singers Ashley Hicklin and Ryan Laurie. And every day, as you can guess, we did a song every day. Well, of course, they are not fully edited and ready for recording, but we wrote the main melody, the lyrics, the structure, we worked very productively and we met wonderful and fresh people, I think the experience of working with other musicians is always interesting here too we composed with world-class professionals, perhaps one of the few songs that we will present to you as a candidate for the Eurovision 2021 competition”
Although state broadcaster UA: PBC has not mentioned how it will select the song that will represent Ukraine at the next Eurovision song contest, the band’s singer, Kateryna Pavlenko, said in an interview with 1 + 1 that Go-A will prepare 5 candidate songs which will be brought under the jurisdiction of the public to decide the next participation of Ukraine.
According to the Eurovision rules, the songs that will compete in the next competition should not have been released before September 1 of the previous year.
