English: Obverse of the flag of Moldova. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So here we go again and this time its Moldova‘s turn to begin their search for an entry for the 58th Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Malmo Sweden in May. And they certainly have put a lot of effort into trying to find themselves an entry that would bring them their very first Eurovision victory since making their first debut in the contest back in 2005 with Zdob şi Zdub & the song “Boonika Bate Toba” (“Grandmamma is beating da drum-a”) which also gave Moldova their best result to date finishing 6th in the final in Kiev.

(YouTube Video Courtesy of escbelgium5)

Well Its Eurovision by “numbers” for Moldova’s search for their 2013 entry – 49 original applicants to represent their country, 126 original songs entered. An 8 member professional jury with members such as Moldovan Eurovision representatives Geta Burlacu (2008) and Nelly Ciobanu (2009) The 8 member Jury have now whittled the 49 entrants down to just 24, these 24 will then be split into two semi finals, 12 in each final (stay with me). The 126 songs have now also been reduced by more than half to just 60. The artists have now less then 2 weeks to work in conjunction with the songwriters to find the song most suitable for them that will hopefully earn them the ticket to Malmo. Listed below are the 24 artists competing & the song titles have been published on the TRM website. The semi finals take place on the 26th and 28th February, While the final will take place on 2 March 2013.

• Anna Gulko
• Inaya
• Felicia Dunaf
• Cristina Scarlat
• Stela Boţan
• Vitalie Negruţa
• Doiniţa Gherman
• Irina Taraşiuc
• Aliona Moon
• Fire Love
• Ruslan Ţaranu
• Cristina Croitoru & Karizma
• Aurel Chirtoacă
• Alexandru Şendrea
• Svetlana Bogdanova
• Boris Covali
• Cristina V.
• Tatiana Heghea
• Denis Latîşev
• NiCo
• Irina Chitoroagă
• Vitalie Maciunschi
• Dara
• Valeria Paşa

The Irish Connection

Yes there is an Irish connection in the Moldovan National Selection this year. Irish born Singer/Writer and Producer Michael Jame Down has composed one of the lucky 60 songs that have been shortlisted for the 24 artists that have been selected for the competition. You may recognise Michael from our blogs as he is one of the composers of Birgitta Haukdal‘s song ‘Meðal Andanna’ in the Icelandic final and has also a song in the Hungarian A-Dal National Selection and 2 songs in the Latvian National Selection. A busy man indeed. Well his song “Runaways” is one of the shortlisted songs in the Moldovan selection this year. We want to wish Michael luck with all his national selection songs.

So the Moldovan selection process  is “intense and detailed”, but its new and certainly a different approach to finding a great song and its also great to see countries putting a great effort into trying to find that elusive first Eurovision victory. Good luck to Moldova and of course as soon as the artists have selected their songs and they become available we’ll bring you all the details you’ll need to follow Moldova’s National Final here at Eurovision Ireland.

Guest Writer – Stephen Hardiman.

Source TRM