Dear Friends,
I am thrilled to confirm that yes, indeed, it’s true Iceland! My self-penned song, “Is It True” co-written with Iceland’s very own Oskar Paul Sveinsson (Bjork, Steps, S Club 7, etc.) and Christopher Neil (Celine Dion, Rod Stewart, Mike & the Mechanics) has now officially been picked as the Icelandic entry for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Moscow this coming May.
As some of you may already know, “Is It True”, performed by the wonderfully gifted and beautiful Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir, will be up against some of the upcoming highlights of the contest, including songs written and/or performed by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, Diane Warren, Patricia Kaas, to name but a few.
For those of you interested in the details of how this year’s Icelandic entry came about (and yes, as you know I am Georgian-born, a Russian citizen after moving to Moscow at the age of 9 and currently living in New York, so why Iceland?) …..
Two hundred and seventeen songs were submitted to the Icelandic broadcaster in their open call for songs for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest pre-selection. Sixteen of those were selected to proceed to the next phase which will include four televised heats in January, leading to the national final.
In an announcement made earlier this morning, Icelandic television broadcaster RÚV made it clear that just over 69,000 votes were cast by the Icelandic public when they chose Jóhanna’s performance of the song “Is It True” as the nations representative for 2009 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest.
The results clearly show that when it came down to choosing an entry to fulfill Iceland’s Eurovision hopes and dreams, there was really only one choice.
To watch the youtube of both the national semi-final and final performances of “Is It True”, please follow these links:
Semi-final Performance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBQv4k3hu28
Official Eurovision YouTube homepage
Thank you all for your continued support and look forward to seeing you either in Moscow or live from the Russian capital on national European TV and/or online webcast!
In the meantime, stay tuned and don’t forget to vote for Iceland (of all countries!) on May 12th! 🙂
Tinatin
The only thing I am unhappy about the Eurovision Song Contest is that the use of English, in the Contest increases year by year.
As a native English speaker I think this is unfair!
It’s certainly time to break the habit of “language imperialism”, in the Eurovision Song Contest, and use a song, sung in Esperanto instead!
This is a serious suggestion, as you can see from the Esperanto music which is already available at http://www.vinilkosmo.com/?prs=listen or at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8837438938991452670
There’s even cheesy Esperanto music available! See http://www.ipernity.com/home/56084
Best Tinatin!
This is a question about Kit Hain, since I seem to be unable to contact her any other way (I searched the web for contactinfo…but to no avail) I wonder if you know where I could e-mail a song that I want to send her?
Best regards/
Markus Olofsson
Sweden
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