Lithuania: LRT opens the submission period for the ESC 2021 national selection

The Lithuanian national broadcaster, LRT, has opened the submission window for the ESC 2021 national selection, providing all the necessary information regarding the next edition of ‘Pabandom iš naujo’ .

Acts that ambition to represent Lithuania at Eurovision 2021 can apply for participation in the national selection organized by the LRT from today. Applications of songwriters or performers for LRT are can be submitted until December 14.

The songs submitted for the selection must be not earlier than September 1, 2020, not released anywhere and not longer than 3 min. All selection rules and application forms can be found here .

Gytis Oganauskas, Deputy General Director of LRT:

Last year’s changes in the selection of the national” Eurovision “paid off, therefore there will be no cardinal innovations in this year’s selection rules, except for the circumstances related to the pandemic.

The selection, as last year, will not take longer than 6 shows. Depending on the number of participants selected, there may be fewer shows.

All stages will be monitored by an audit company. Artists or bands can only appear with one track. The commission’s work, which was tested last year, will continue this year: it will observe the selection in another, non-selection, studio: as is the case with the international Eurovision Song Contest. The members of the Commission will sign a declaration of impartiality.

As last year, the selection process will be overseen by a working group led by Gytis Oganauskas. Vytautas Bikus, whose songs have been performed many times at the grand Eurovision Song Contest, will join her this year. The working group also includes:

Audrius Giržadas, Chief Producer of the LRT Television Program Department
Ramūnas Zilnys, Editor-in-Chief of LRT Popular Music
Darius Užkuraitis, Senior Editor of the LRT Music Editorial Board
Giedrius Masalskis, Head of the LRT Radio Programs Department
Rūta Putnikienė, Head of LRT Communication and Marketing Department
Justina Sokolovskė, LRT Communication and Marketing Department Project Manager
Povilas Varvuolis, television director.

This working team will have until 23 December to select participants for the national selection shows and inform the participants. The first release will be released on January 16th.

THE EUROVISION STORY SO FAR

Lithuania has debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994 and since then has a total of 20 appearances. On its first participation, Ovidijus Vyšniauskas finished last, receiving zero points. Lithuania withdrew from the contest and did not come back until 1999. LT United’s 6th place in 2006 with the song “We Are the Winners” is Lithuania’s best result in the contest. The country achieved one more top ten result in 2016, when Donny Montell finished 9th with “I’ve Been Waiting for This Night”.

In 2018 the country was represented by Ieva Zasimaskaite with her emotional ballad song When We’re Old, which finished 12th in the grand final. In 2019 national final winner, Jurij Veklenko defended the Lithuanian colors in Tel Aviv with the song Run With The Lions, but failed to qualify to the final left in the 11th place of the second semi final.

This year The Roop had won the national final with their song “On fire” but never made it to the Eurovision stage after the Eurovision 2020 cancellation due to the coronavirus outbreak.