CROATIA 🇭🇷
Franka is a Croatian singer and songwriter born in 1992. She started singing when she was three years old as the soloist in the Minicantanti Choir and performed at various festivals both in Croatia and abroad. While in school, Franka was a member of the St Andrija church choir in her hometown of Rabac and participated as the choir soloist at Christian music festivals. She studied piano and plays both piano and guitar. Besides singing, Franka has a big passion for travelling and foreign languages. She studied music performance and song writing at Berklee College of Music in Boston. She is currently studying Law at the University of Zagreb. Franka rose to fame in her native country when she won Showtime in 2007, a TV show similar to Pop Idol. She also competed in the Croatian national selection for Eurovision, Dora, in 2009 and 2010, but without success. In December 2009, Franka won Ples sa zvijezdama, the Croatian version of Dancing with the Stars with her dance partner Ištvan Varga. In 2011, Franka was featured on the songs On Fire and Run, where she enjoyed success outside of Croatia. After a break from music she came back at the end of 2017 and wrote the lyrics of her entry Crazy.
UKRAINE 🇺🇦
Inna Leonidivna Bordyuh, known professionally as Zlata Ognevich (Ukrainian: Злата Огнєвіч), is a Ukrainian singer and former politician. She represented Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 in Malmö with the song “Gravity”, placing third. Ognevich previously attempted to represent Ukraine at the contest in 2010 and 2011. In 2014, Ognevich was elected to the Verkhovna Rada for the Radical Party using her birth name Inna Bordyuh. She resigned from parliament after one year, citing her opposition to the corruption she had witnessed.[4] She has been vocal in her support for Ukrainian forces during the pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine, and announced she would not accept Russian citizenship following the annexation of Crimea, where Ognevich was raised.
SPAIN 🇪🇸
In 2011 Lucía took part in the Spanish selection process for the Eurovision Song Contest 2011, Destino Eurovisión, and on 18 February, she won the final with the song “Que me quiten lo bailao”. In March 2011, following her election as the Spanish Eurovision entrant, Lucía was signed to Warner Music to release her fifth album, Cruzo los dedos, in April 2011. At the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 final that took place in Düsseldorf, Germany on 14 May she placed 23rd. However, she was 16th in the separate televoting result.
ESTONIA 🇪🇪
In 2016, Pootsmann was announced as one of the candidates in the Estonian national selection, Eesti Laul 2016, for the Eurovision Song Contest 2016. On 20 February 2016 Pootsmann performed his song “Play” during the second semi-final of the selection at the Estonian Television studios in Tallinn, and he progressed to the final. The final took place on 5 March 2016 at the Saku Suurhall in Tallinn, hosted by Ott Sepp and Märt Avandi. He reached the Super Final and won the national selection with 32,394 televotes. During the Eurovision Song Contest, Estonia was drawn into the first semi-final. Pootsmann placed last (18th), Estonia’s worst result to date at the contest, and failed to qualify to the final.
AZERBAIJAN 🇦🇿
Elnur Huseynov and Samir Javadzadeh were selected to represent Azerbaijan at the Eurovision Song Contest 2008, marking the country’s debut in this song contest. Identified as the duo Elnur and Samir, together they sang “Day After Day”. They were placed eighth in the finals. Following the contest, the duo split. Elnur Hüseynov represented Azerbaijan for a second time in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 with the song “Hour of the Wolf”.[8] He finished 12 overall in the final.
CYPRUS 🇨🇾
Eleni Foureira presents her new international hit “El Ritmo Psicodélico” with an impressive lyric video! This summer’s reggaeton anthem takes an audiovisual form and hits the YouTube platform! On the just-released lyric video of “El Ritmo Psicodélico”, Eleni’s animated avatar swipes us off our feet with her extraordinary moves! “El Ritmo Psicodélico” is one of the five pop anthems of Eleni’s first international EP, “Gypsy Woman”, released by Panik Records. The EP has received fantastic reviews and feedback from the audience and became a huge success in the digital charts, counting, to date, over 1 million Spotify streams. In particular, “El Ritmo Psicodélico” went directly at #1 in the Greek iTunes chart and #1 in Deezer, while entering Spotify’s Top50 and Viral50 in Greece and Cyprus. It has also debuted on the digital charts in Spain, Germany, United Kingdom and US. The track is already big viral hit and many fans are sharing it on their social media. Meanwhile, Eleni Foureira continues her sold-out tour across Europe, having performed in more than 20 countries.
FINLAND 🇫🇮
On 29 January 2019, Darude was announced as the Finnish representative for the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 in Tel Aviv, Israel. He performed alongside Sebastian Rejman, and his song was decided in a special edition of Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu. They performed third in the first semi-final at Eurovision but failed to qualify for the grand final.
SWEDEN 🇸🇪
Bishara, who in March 2018 was asked to sing in the school cafeteria by his music teacher and was totally unaware of his aptitude for singing, chose to upload a clip from the performance. The feedback was immediate, resulting in that his following increased drastically and his comment section was full of praise from people all over the world who was blown away by his vocal talent. Today he has over 170 000 followers on Instagram. In January this year he released his debut single ’Home’ as a preview of his second single ’On My Own’ and after a fully packed spring after the success in Melodifestivalen he is now releasing his third single ’Love Don’t Let Me Down’ which he is releasing as both an original version and a remix. A heartbreaking ballad about love and the desire to find the one. In ’Love Don’t Let Me Down’ Bishara is demonstrating his incredible voice and talent to convey emotions through music and is getting ready for an exciting year with new music and performances all over Sweden.
