Romania | 126 songs submitted for Selectia Nationala
After the 10th of December, which was the deadline for submitting the songs to compete in Romania’s national selection, TVR announced today via a press communicate that 126 songs were submitted for Selectia Nationala, which means there are 70% more songs than last year.
However, we are not sure if we’ll get to listen all 126 of them because from the 11th until the 20th of December there will be a preselection phase – where a preselection jury will choose only 24 songs to compete in the semi-finals. The semi-finals, according to TVR, will take place in January-February 2019 in two Romanian cities with a polyvalent hall – so that they will be able to create the best conditions for two live shows. The big final will take place in February 2019 in Bucharest.
Regarding the voting system, a national jury will evaluate the songs in the semi-finals. In each semi-final, they will select 5 songs to qualify for the final, while the public televote will qualify only one song. As for the final, the jury will be an international one – with Conchita Wurst rumoured to be a member of! The winner(s) and Romania’s representative(s) will be chosen via international jury votes + public televote (which will only weigh as much as one member of the jury).
Rumoured artists for Selectia Nationala
The biggest name rumoured to take part in Selectia Nationala is Laura Bretan. She is a 16 years old opera singer with an aspiring career and she is known as the winner of the 6th season of Romanians Got Talent. She also got the 6th place in the Big Final of America’s Got Talent (season 11). The hype is even bigger because she is collaborating with the songwriter Mihai Alexandru, who was the man behind “Yodel it!”, Romania’s entry in 2017 who got the 7th place, and also “Don’t break my heart”, which was Romania’s entry in 2003 and got the 10th place. Check below Laura Bretan’s performance with Il Volo (Italy, 3rd place in Eurovision 2015):
Another new, confirmed artist is Ligia, who is a popular mainstream artist in the Romanian music industry. She announced on her Instagram that she will compete and that her song is called “One in a million”. As of now, we don’t know if other famous Romanian artists submitted any songs, as was the case with Feli in 2018.
Returning artists consist of Mihai Traistariu (Romania’s representative in 2006 with “Tornero” and multiple attempts in Selectia Nationala afterwards), Teodora Dinu, Sergiu Bolota, Johnny Badulescu (SN 2017 & 2018), Xandra (SN 2016, 2017 & 2018) and NAVI (songwriter for Romania’s entry in 2011 – “Change” by Hotel FM). However, we will not know until the 20th of December if they qualified for the semi-finals.
On this occasion, the Eurovoxx team wishes the best of luck to all the contestants. We will keep an eye on Selectia Nationala’s progress, so follow us to stay updated!
