Eglė Jurgaitytė,who came 3rd for Lithuania in 2008 and now appears on various Lithuanian TV shows, is competing on "Choir Wars". This is a Lithuanian show (actually called Chorų karai), where different areas represented by a singer compete against each other. After week 1, Egle is coming 5th. Sasha Son from Eurovision 2009 is also participating (coming 4th).Egle is the only child allowed on the show, which caused a bit of controversy. She was involved in selecting singers. The show is on TV3 weekly. You can watch it here: www.tv3.lt -->> WEB TV -->> TV3 laidos -->> Chorų karai -->> Chorų karai 2010-01-16 (pick a date)-->> Žiūrėti.
You can see Egle's performance Beyonce's "If I were a Boy" (in Lithuanian!) here:
Here is a promo for the show (uploaded by our new channel, JuniorEurovisionTV, so far run by Annika, Sara and myself):
And Bon Jovi's "It's my Life" by all participants in Lithuanian (Egle sings a bit):
Ralf Mackenbach has appeared with Marco Borsato on "Nederland helpt Haïti" (Netherlands help Haiti), a special TV show to raise funds for the devastated country of Haiti. They sing "De speeltuin".
Meanwhile, I completed (in a manner of speaking, it's never complete..) the Dasha, Alina & Karina page (totally the same level of achievement ;) ) .. check it out under "The Singers -- Belarus".
21st January 2010
Svante Stockselius, the man in charge of all the Eurovision contests, has traveled to Belarus to review their plans for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2010. According to him, Belarus is not only perfectly prepared to host the JESC, but also the senior edition - Eurovision. It was their intense preparation that led Belarus to be chosen as host for 2010 over Russia and Malta. He has visited the Minsk Arena, where the contest will be held and has deemed it very suitable for hosting such a large contest. As it is a new building, they should not suffer the same technical problems organisers found in Kiev.
The EBU does not want more than 18 countries in JESC, instead preferring to keep it small and personal... although perhaps not quite as small as the bakers dozen we saw in 2009. They want to focus on the children enjoying their performance, eliminating the rush and pressure of the adult contest. They will send the five remaining invitations to all EBU countries in March, who will then have until May to enter.
Deputy President of the Belarusian Teleradiocompany Alexander Martynenko says: “We are in active negotiations with UNICEF about possible partnership. With UNICEF’s aid we plan to invite famous ambassadors of good will for holding master classes. The Swedish television will be our partners for setting the stage. Apart from that, a special team of professionals recruited from EBU member-states will help stage the show. These professionals have taken part in arranging all the Eurovision contests."
According to Esckaz, the age limit for JESC will stay as 10-15. The show will take place on Saturday, November 20th, not the Sunday as was rumoured. Also, and this is exciting news - Belarus will invite all previous JESC winners to Minsk! Should they accept, we will see Dino, Maria Isabel, Kseniya, the Tolmachevy Twins, Alexey, Bzikebi and Ralf! There will be a documentary filmed on their lives since winning, where they are now. I'd say it is likely at least Kseniya, Alexey and the twins will appear, and Bzikebi appeared at Belarus national selection 2009 so they are also a good bet.
Hello everyone! Holidays are over, the site will now be updated frequently again. The news will pick up once JESC pre-selections start for 2010 (usually once ESC is over), until then we'll mainly be covering news about the 2003-2009 artists, as well as planning news from Minsk. I will be updating the photo galleries, biographies, national final pages and audio page.
The countries confirmed so far for JESC 2010 appear to be:
Russia (http://www.nnovgorod.rfn.ru/region.html?rid=25331) Belarus (http://www.tvr.by) The Netherlands (songfestival.web-log.nl) Belgium (http://www.eurosong.be/nieuws.php?id=15975)
5/12/2009 - Ralf Mackenbach, the winner of JESC 2009, who is currently enjoying an 18th place on the Belgian singles charts.. has an impersonator. Someone is pretending to be him on the internet, trying to seduce young girls.
"Ralf has a dirty imposter double
Song Contest winner Ralf is becoming a real star, now he even has his own look-alike. But he's not flattered by it at all. Because this person that's pretending to be Ralf, is trying to seduce young girls through MSN.
Ralf's mother received a phone call from a woman who contacted the police, because someone who called himself Ralf Mackenbach was doing all kind of weird proposals on MSN to her daughters. Ralf's mom to the newspaper: "I'm really glad she called me. Since the national contest we had to deal with someone imposing to be Ralf already."
Ralf: "I'm afraid that this way, some girl might get in contact with a pedophile or loverboy." Just so you know: if you ever run into Ralf online, it's a very small chance that it's really Ralf himself. He says: "I never use MSN.""
So be careful everyone, beware of anyone pretending to be Ralf, or any other contestant, never arrange to meet them, or give out your address or other personal details.
5/12/2009 - If you'd like to watch a 15 minute news special on the Princesses and Georgia in JESC, including an extensive interview with the Princesses vocal coach, see the links below. It is in Georgian though. I'll post the links to a few older news reports too.
30th Nov '09 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXhSIWTq9EQ (part 1) 30th Nov '09 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfPy0d6TRzM (part 2)
Princesses rehearsing before JESC week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe2rndhY0cs
A Capella performance by the Princesses from Basti Bubu studio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sweo0oyHFtM
Imedi - Princesses (8 minutes including performance) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgaHCAO65QA
Other news reports: Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hpr4lCMpYBI Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG5DTSTLxQE
Here's one from a while ago, with all the Georgian national final contestants performing, plus Mariam Romelashvili. A notable absence by Bzikebi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CXIM393uwI
Despite not receiving as high a placing as they may have hoped in Kiev, Georgia's enthusiam for JESC has not been dimmed. Some countries see the junior version as lesser to the adult ESC, but Basti Bubu labels their videos as simply "Eurovision", which indicates to me that they place the JESC on an equal standing. (If I'm reading too much into that, blame two years of Ancient History and analysing sources.)
01/12/2009 - In some random news, Miguel Wiels (who wrote Zo Verleifd and K3's latest single Ma Mase), is already at work on a new single for Laura. I guess they will utilise the yodelling, it will be her "thing", like Bzikebi's bzzing. Ralf was honoured by his towns mayor after winning the JESC, appeared on Paul de Leeuw's show and his song is #1 on Dutch Itunes, and.. he also entered the Flanders charts at place 45! Laura is #, beaten by the Black Eyed Peas and K3. Will she beat Thor, who charted overall for the year in 2006?
Sophie Debattisa from JESC 2006, whose music is now available at: f2fmusic.co.uk, Hmv.com, Tesco.com, itunes, Napster, Amazon, Play.com, E-music, Shockhound, Lala, Amie street, Rhapsody & Groupie tunes, is releasing a new song 'Give it Up'. She has 10 dancers for this song, Daron, Karl, Franklin, Darren, Anthea, Miky, Raquel,Leanne, Emma and Camille. Only two familiar names. In Aruba she is now number 1 with K.I.S.S.! Ahead of the current Australian number 1, shall I add. (source: http://www.hit94fm.com/top20.html)
In the photo above, Laura is bigger than Mikaela. The youngest but not the smallest!
Apologies for neglecting the site since JESC, dreadfully busy ;) Here's a video I made congratulating the Netherlands!
27/11/2009 - Here are the results of the Cypriot jury vote:
12 - Russia 10 - Georgia 8 - The Netherlands 7 - Armenia 6 - Ukraine 5 - Belgium 4 - Sweden 3 - Malta 2 - Serbia 1 - FYROM
Their combined vote was:
12 - Armenia 10 - Russia 8 - Netherlands 7 - Georgia 6 - Belgium 5 - Ukraine 4 - Malta 3 - Serbia 2 - Sweden 1 - Belarus
So we can tell that Belgium, Belarus, Serbia and Malta were disadvantaged by having a jury votes system (with full televote they'd have scored better), while Sweden must be thankful to the jury, as must Georgia. Armenia must have done extremely well in the televote.
26/11/2009 - And the JESC is over for another year. The hype will die down now, to be ignited again next September, which is the main national final season. The show will be hosted in Minsk, Belarus in 2010, and I think we can look forward to an exciting show. First we must commend the Ukraine on their efforts in 2009, as although initially a good JESC looked doubtful, it ended up being a great show. The stage, although it was surrounded by people trained to wave and cheer and whom were all colour co-ordinated, it did look very visually effective. It is hard to say how full the hall was, some seats were empty and the floor wasn't entirely full. Estimates are approximatly 7000 people in the Palace of Sports. The hosts were enthusiastic, especially Ani (who did a performance of Shady Lady which was full of life, besides the miming). Their English definitely needed improvement, and introducing the countries should have been done in English.. Sakartvelo is not so indentifying. Speaking of Georgia, the country's motto is "Strength is in Unity". And that, is entirely true.
There were more journalists interested in the Junior Eurovision this year, despite press mixups and lack of access to the singers in Kiev. Ralf has already been invited to perform in Germany (a non JESC country), and the head of the Bosnian TV station which particpates in ESC was following JESC closely. Over 300 articles have been published on the contest in Russian language, and several hundred in Dutch. Not so many English speaking news outlets followed the contest, but extremely popular time.com, an American news company published an extensive review of the contest (read it here: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1942385,00.html).
Ralf's win has garnered extreme media attention in the Netherlands, with the country celebrating it's first win in 35 years. Primetime news outlets covered Ralf's arrival at the airport, where a crowd of hundreds waited to greet him, singing along to Click Clack. He's been in the papers, he's been interviewed by radio and tv stations. A television crew followed him around his school, getting his classmates reactions on the win. A victory for the Netherlands should raise the spirits of not only Netherlands, but Belgium too (who came a respectable 4th). They deserve it, their national finals are shown in prime time and have a lot of effort put in!
It is interesting to see how different countries promote themselves. Georgia sent a 27-person delegation, with two vocal coaches, a stage producer, a choreographer and even a phsycologist (and about 942 costume changes), whereas Malta sent the girls and their families and their coach. We will soon examine who will be taking part in 2010, and what Belarus has in store for us. Also to come, a full review of the 2009 contest. Then, finishing the site so we can work on some fun new features!
23rd January 2010
Svante Stockselius, the man in charge of all the Eurovision contests, has traveled to Belarus to review their plans for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2010. According to him, Belarus is not only perfectly prepared to host the JESC, but also the senior edition - Eurovision. It was their intense preparation that led Belarus to be chosen as host for 2010 over Russia and Malta. He has visited the Minsk Arena, where the contest will be held and has deemed it very suitable for hosting such a large contest. As it is a new building, they should not suffer the same technical problems organisers found in Kiev.
26/11/2009 - And the JESC is over for another year. The hype will die down now, to be ignited again next September, which is the main national final season. The show will be hosted in Minsk, Belarus in 2010, and I think we can look forward to an exciting show. First we must commend the Ukraine on their efforts in 2009, as although initially a good JESC looked doubtful, it ended up being a great show. The stage, although it was surrounded by people trained to wave and cheer and whom were all colour co-ordinated, it did look very visually effective. It is hard to say how full the hall was, some seats were empty and the floor wasn't entirely full. Estimates are approximatly 7000 people in the Palace of Sports. The hosts were enthusiastic, especially Ani (who did a performance of Shady Lady which was full of life, besides the miming). Their English definitely needed improvement, and introducing the countries should have been done in English.. Sakartvelo is not so indentifying. Speaking of Georgia, the country's motto is "Strength is in Unity". And that, is entirely true.