Romania: Watch the official music video of Ester Peony’s “On A Sunday”

The Romanian representative at the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 Ester Peony has released the official music video of her entry “On A Sunday”. Romania will take part in the first half of the second semi-final on May 16.

The official video of Ester Peony’s “On A Sunday” premiered on Romanian national broadcaster TVR before it was uploaded on the official Youtube channel of Ester’s record label Cat Music and later on on the official Eurovision 2019 channel. The music video (including some minor changes in the song and composition) was directed by Petre Nastase and was shot in the historic building of the nineteenth century Casa Monteoru located in the country’s capital Bucharest.

Since her victory at “Selecţia Naţională 2019” Ester Peony has received strong criticism from both the Romanian press and audience. Even the Romanian parliament discussed the scandal and issue of her victory that was decided by the votes of an international jury (7/8) and a public televote, the latter constituting only 1/8 of the overall result.

Furthermore Ester’s entry “On A Sunday” was accused of plagiarising several songs including Johnny Cash’s “Wayfaring Stranger”, one of the most famous versions of a well-known American folk and gospel song originating in the early 19th century. However the research and analysis that has been carried out by Romanian national broadcaster TVR led to the final decision that Ester Peony will be allowed to perform her entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 in Tel Aviv.

Ester Alexandra Creţu, professionally known as Ester Peony, is a Romanian singer and songwriter who was raised in Montréal in Canada. In 2014, she got signed to a Romanian record label after gaining online fame with her covers of famous songs. One year later the Romanian-Canadian singer rose to fame as her song “Sub aripa ta” (feat. Vescan), was playlisted for weeks on Romanian radio and music TV stations. In 2018, Ester released her first EP called “Dig It” featuring a row of her self-penned songs. In February 2019 she emerged as the winner of “Selecţia Naţională 2019” with her song “On A Sunday”, which she composed alongside Alexandru Șerbu with Ioana Victoria Badea writing the lyrics.