Portugal | More Details Released About Festival da Canção 2019

It was recently announced that Portugal would be present at the Eurovision Song Contest 2019. Despite earlier reports that the country made a 4 million euro loss when it hosted in May this year, the directors at RTP seem more eager than ever to cement the countries recent success by continuing to hold their national final Festival da Canção, and have announced more details in how they intend to do this.

The team behind the national final have already stated via the news programme Telejournal that 14 song composers have been invited, and chosen to help with the contest. What is interesting is that RTP has stated that this years contest will have a 'great diversity' in regards to the songs, and singers, which will include 'new musical styles'. Could this lead to a more exciting, and entertaining show?

The 14 song composers, will be asked to present an original song, and has the choice of selecting the singer for their compositions. There will be a further 2 slots made for the public to fill in their submissions. The first being made through the 'Master Class' radio programme, which will ask for composers who have no published works, whilst the second will rely on anybody willing to participate that is a Portuguese citizen. Both will have up until the 31st October to send in their songs.

Just like last year, it was announced that the two semi finals would be pre-recorded in the nations capital, whilst the live final would take place outside of Lisbon. As of yet, no dates have been officially announced.

Despite automatically qualifying as they hosted the Eurovision this year, the artists Claudia and Isaura failed to emulate Salvador Sobrals success by coming last in 2018. They only scored 39 points, with which 21 came from the public, and 19 were awarded by the juries.

At the contest this year, Eurvoxx were fortunate to speak to the Portuguese representatives Claudia and Isaura, and this is what they had to say.