Ukraine: It’s Oleksandr Balabanov with his song ‘Vidkryvay’ to Junior Eurovision 2020

Ukraine has selected its Junior Eurovision 2020 rerpesentative, as Oleksandr Balabanov won the national selection and will be representing the nation in Warsaw with his song Vidkryvay .

Oleksandr Balabanov will be Ukraine’s next JESC representative after winning the national selection, even before the public voting was over, as he had achieved a high score in the jury voting. With a total of eleven acts competing in the final, a jury and the public had to determine the final winner.

The jury voting results came out as following:

Oleksandr Balanbanov – 5 votes

Olena Usenko – 2 votes

Yaroslav Politov – 1 vote

With the public vote awarding only one point for the winner it is clear that no other contestant can reach Olexandr even by winning the public voting. The jury of the national selection consisted the following members:

Jamala (Winner of the ESC 2016)
Alina Pash (Singer)
Taras Topolya (Soloist in Antytila)
Ruslana Khazipova (Dakh Daughters member)
Dmytro Shurov ( Soiloist in Pianoboy)
Larysa Kluyevska ( UA: radio promin music editior)
Timur Miroshnychenko ( JESC commentator and TV presenter)
Lyubov Morozova ( Music critic – UA: Kultura host)

A few words about Oleksandr

The 13-year-old act was born in Donetsk. He has started singing from the age of 4 in a folk singing group! When he turned 8, he moved to the capital of Kyiv with his parents so he can attend the music classes at the art school there in order to evolve his talent as a pop vocalist as well.
He has won about 40 national and internations festivals and competitions already and is fluent in English already, all while studying German and Turkish as well! He has experienced been a finalist in the Ukrainian preliminary round for the JESC twice, namely in 2018 and 2019. In addition, he won the Slavianski Bazar Kids in 2018 and was at the Ukrainian The Voice Kids successfully

Meanwhile Oleksandr will be the first male act to represent Ukraine at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest since 2009, when Andranik Alexanyan represented the country in the edition Timur Miroshnychenko hosted!

Oleksandr will sing ‘Vidkryvay’ which means ‘Open’ in Ukrainian! You can listen to his entry below: