Italy: RAI confirms Eurovision 2019 participation
RAI, the Italian national broadcaster, has confirmed that Italy will be present at the next edition of the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 upcoming in Israel.
The Italians are here and will be joining the party in Israel alongside with 35 countries that have confirmed so far participation in the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest.
RAI is yet to confirm the format it will use to determine its Eurovision act and entry for Eurovision 2019, but for once more it is likely that Italy will stick to its traditional Sanremo Song Festival as in the latest years.
SANREMO FESTIVAL 2019
Just more than a month before, RAI, the Italian broadcaster, announced the new rules for the 69th edition of Sanremo Festival. According to the new rules, the pattern of the two competing categories , that of “Big” and “Nuove proposte” acts , will not be followed again, as from next year’s edition all artists will compete in one unified group of contestants.
However, RAI has made plans for a new music festival entitled “Sanremo Giovani” (Young Sanremo) which will be held for a week in December 2018 and will be aired by RAI 1 .This new event will give the chance to young acts, under the age of 36, to compete and battle for two spots in the Festival di Sanremo 2019. RAI has officially opened the submissions window for Sanremo Giovani. The Italian broadcaster has made a call for record labels to submit artists and songs in to the competition. Record companies can submit artists and songs in to the competition until today October 5 at 18:00 CET
The 2019 Sanremo Song Festival will be running from 5 to 9 February 2019 with the Grand Finale scheduled to be held on Saturday 9 February. The coveted song festival will be held once again at the Teatro Ariston in Sanremo.
THE EUROVISION STORY SO FAR
Italy has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 44 times since making its debut at the first contest in 1956. After a 14-year absence from 1998 and on, the country returned to the contest in 2011. Italy has won the contest twice in 1964 with Gigliola Cinquetti and her song “Non ho l’età”. Italy’s second victory in the contest came in 1990 with Toto Cutugno and the song “Insieme: 1992”.
Italy’s come back to the contest has proved to be very successful, the country having finished in the top ten in six times of the last seven contests (2011–2018), with Raphael Gualazzi second in 2011, Nina Zilli ninth in 2012, Marco Mengoni seventh in 2013 and Il Volo third in 2015, Francesco Ghabbani 6th in Kiev.
In this year’s Eurovision Song Contest the winners of Sanremo 2018 ,Ermal Meta and Fabrizio Moro, represented Italy in Eurovision in Lisbon with their song “Non mi avete fatto niente”. The Italian duo achieved an honorable 5th place in the Grand final with 308 points and a remarkable 3rd placing in the public voting.
