The Romanian broadcaster TVR revealed the 24 shortlisted acts that will be participating in the country’s national final Selecția Națională! Newcomers but old familiar to the Eurovision family names feature this year’s edition of Selecția Națională!
Just a few day before it was revealed that Arad and Iași will be the two cities to host the Selecția Națională semi finals which this year will be two and will take place on 20 and 27 January respectively. The Grand Final is set to take place on 17 February in the country’s capital Bucharest.
A total of 126 songs were submitted to the broadcaster, which were subsequently evaluated by a selection panel. The committee shortlisted the submissions down to the following 24 candidates:
2 Gents – Ielele
Aldo Blaga – Your journey
Berniceya – The call
Claudiu Mirea – We are the ones
Dan Bittman – Pierd
Dya & Lucian Colareza – Without you (Sin ti)
Echoes – High heels on
Ester Peony – On a Sunday
Georgy – Tears
Johnny Badulescu – Give up now
Laura Bretan – Dear father
Letitia Moisescu & Sensibil Balkan – Daina
M I H A I – Baya (Speechless)
Nicola – Weight of the world
Olivier Kaye – Right now
Ommieh x Anakrisez – Rock this way
Steam – The way it goes
Teodora Dinu – Skyscraper
The four – The song of my heart
Trooper – Destin
TWM – Make me your man
Vaida – Underground
Xandra – Independent
Xonia – Discrete
The most notable contestant is M I H A I, who has already represented the country at Eurovision 2006 in Athens, achieving one of the best placings (4th) with his entry Tornero. Mihai is aboslutely the ultimate veteran of Romania’s national finals.
The first time Mihai tried to represent Romania was bach in 2000 as member of the group Valahia and their song “Why“. He almost reached his goal ending in 2nd place. In 2002 and 2003 he made two more attempts witht the same band finsihing 4tha and 3rd respectively. In 2005 he ended 3rd in a participation alongside with Nico. Since then M I H A I has made several attempts to represent the country again but without luck competing continuously every year since 2016 (“Paradisio” (5th), in 2017 with “I won’t surrender” (2nd ) 2018 with “Heaven“(7th place).
Additionally, Xandra is also not unknown to the fans of the competition since she has already three participations the last three edition of the national selection.
TVR is going to reveal more details on the songs’ allocation in the two semi-finals in the near future.
The Eurovision Story So Far
Romania made its first attempt to compete in the contest back in 1993 for the Eurovision Song Contest. After competing in the preliminary semi-final in Slovenia with Dida Dragan, failed to win one of the three spots that led to the Eurovision stage in Millstreet, Ireland
Romania officially debuted at the the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994 with Dan Bitman and has participatted a total of 22 times since then. Its best reuslts were scored in 2005 with Luminita Anghel and in 2010 with the duo Paula Seling & Ovi achieving in both cases the honorable 3rd place in the Grand Final.
In 2016 the country received a penalty by the EBU due to its broadcaster’s overdue debt and was forced to withdraw from the contest, although it had chosen its Eurovision entry and act for Stockholm.
In 2018 Romanian band The Humans won the Selecţia Naţională and performed Goodbye on the stage of Altice Arena in Lisbon. For the first time in its history the country didn’t make it to the final, breaking a record of qualifying to each grand final since the semi finals were introduced.
The 64th Eurovision Song Contest will be taking place on 14, 16 and 18 May at the Tel Aviv Exhibition Center in Tel Aviv, Israel. The event will be produced by the Israeli public broadcaster KAN and the EBU.
