Finland: Aksel to return with a new song in UMK 2021
The winner of the Finnish national final of UMK 2020, Aksel, will be coming back next year with a new song for the 2021 edition of UMK.
Last March the 22 year old singer competed in the Finnihs national final , UMK 2020, with his song Looking Back and won the ticket to represent the country at Eurovision 2020 in Rotterdam. Unfotunately his Eurovision 2020 journey remained incomplete after the cancellation of this year’s edition due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Following EBU’s decision , the Finnish broadcaster announced that it will be holding a new national selection in 2021 selecting a new representative for Eurovision 2021. YLE didn’t offer any pass to Aksel directly to the final but welcomed him to compete once again in next year’s national final.
Aksel to return at UMK 2021
During the last episode of “Eurovision Home Concerts” the young Finnish star, followed YLE’s recommendation and revealed that he will be returning next year in UMK 2021 with a new song. After performing his own 2020 entry along with Alexander Rybak’s 2009 winner “Fairytale”, Aksel said:
“Even though I’m sad that Eurovision was cancelled, I am happy to announce that we are working on new music and we are going to audition at UMK. Let’s see where that goes.” (57:43 min of the following video)
YLE’s ESC 2021 plans
YLE, has confirmed that Eurovision 2021 representative will be selected through the national final format of UMK 2021. The song search opens September 1 at Yle.fi/umk . The rules for the UMK21 national selection will be published in June at Yle.fi/umk in in Finnish, Swedish and English. The pre-qualifying songs of the national final will be conducted again by a panel of experts from UMK, chaired by Tapio Hakanen, Music Manager at YleX .
This year Aksel won the national final with the song “Looking Back”. Let remeber his winning performance:
