Ukraine’s public broadcaster UA:PBC has announced five acts to compete to represent Ukraine at Junior Eurovision 2022.
The Ukrainian national selection will be held live on Suspline TV on Sunday, September 18, 2022. International viewers will also be able to view the event live on UA:PBC’s Eurovision YouTube Channel.
Six girls aged 11 to 14 form the five competing acts (one duet and four solo artists), and each artist has experience in local and international singing contests.
The five acts, in order of reveal by UA:PBC, and their song titles in English are as follows:
- Sofia Artemenko and DJ Polinka – “Order”
- Zlata Dzyunka – “Unbreakable”
- Elizaveta Petruk – “Stork Song”
- Darya Rebrova – “Fern Flower”
- Diana Stasiuk – “We are the Future”
11-year-old DJ Polinka has been on the turntables since the age of 3, and has provided backing for Ukrainian child artists and as a solo artist at international festivals. This summer, DJ Polinka headed a Kyiv based project called “From a dungeon, a child’s voice,” with DJ Polinka performing live DJ Sets from a bomb shelter.
Polinka is paired on “Order” with 14-year-old Sofia Artemenko. Artemenko has been singing since the age of 9, and has already managed some high profile collaborations, including “Noise” performed with Ukraine’s Eurovision 2021 fifth-placed folktronica act Go-A’s lead singer Katya Pavlenko.
Zlata Dzyunka is entering the national selection with “Unbreakable,” but based on her resume the 13-year-old from Rava-Ruska seems “Unbeatable.” Dzyunka has won several international singing contests, including the Prague Art Festival, Poland’s Vistula Sounds 2022, and Lithuania’s Zvaigzdziu sonata 2022.
14-year-old Elizaveta Petruk from Gostomel made it to the finals with “Пісня про Лелечат” (“Stork Song”). She has studied under Olexandr Ponomaryev and his Vocal Academy. Olexandr was Ukraine’s Eurovision debut artist at Eurovision 2003 with “Hasta la vista.”
Another participant in the Olexandr Ponomaryev Vocal Academy is 13-year-old Darya Rebrova, who brings us “Fern Flower.” This will be Rebrova’s second attempt at Junior Eurovision, with her “Make Me Happy” coming in 9th at Ukraine’s 2021 Junior Eurovision national selection.
Rounding out the selection is 14-year-old Diana Stasiuk, who while also an Olexandr Ponomaryev Vocal Academy student, has experience as a dubbing artist singing Ukrainian language versions of English language songs for movies and television shows.
Ukraine’s Junior Eurovision national selection is usually a highlight on the calendar, with most selections featuring up to a dozen up-and-coming Ukrainian youth acts with songs written and produced by some of Ukraine’s biggest music industry names. Typically, the selection is decided by both a jury vote and an online/televote.
Olena Usenko won Ukraine’s 2021 selection with “Vazhil,” whose lyrics are even more poignant now that we have seen what happened to Ukraine in February 2022 when Russia launched its invasion.
As she told junioreurovision.tv, “fill your life with beautiful moments, be yourself and be conscious of every moment of your life. Time flies, and life is the most important thing that we have. So we must value our life and live it as we believe is right.”
“Vazhil” ended up coming in 6th at Junior Eurovision 2021, which was won by Armenia’s Malena and “Qami Qami.”
Junior Eurovision 2022 will held on December 11, 2022, at the Karen Demirchyan Sports and Concerts Complex in Yerevan, Armenia. This is the same venue where Armenia hosted Junior Eurovision 2011, the year after their first victory.
Ukraine has been highly regarded at Junior Eurovision since their debut in 2006, winning once in 2012 with Anastasiya Petryk’s “Nebo” and coming in second on two occasions in 2008 and 2013.
Will #YOU be checking out Ukraine’s national selection for JESC 2022? Do any of these young acts sound like potential winners to #YOU? Let us know in the comments below, on our social media, or in our forum.
