Tonight, Moldova took another step towards the big final in Stockholm, by picking the first 8 acts that still has a chance at representing the country in Sweden.
Background
The selection process took already place, back in October, where artists could submit their songs in order to take part in a audition show, which took place back in December, and which featured all the 47 songs, that were submitted back then to TRM, Moldova’s national broadcaster.
From all the 47 submitted songs, 24 were selected to take part in the 2 semi-finals, that take place in this week.
The first semi-final of the Moldovan show “O Melodie Pentru Europa” has taken place, in which 12 contestants took part, while the remaining 12 acts will compete in the second semi-final later this week.
The following 12 acts competed tonight in the following order:
- Doinița Gherman – “Irresistible”
- Valentina Nejel – “Va fi târziu”
- Valeria Pașa – “Save Love”
- Emilia Russu – “I Am Not the Same”
- Che-MD – “Vodă e cu noi”
- Chris Maroo – “Tonight”
- Valetin Uzun – “Mine”
- Criss Jeff – “Good Life”
- DoReDos – “FunnyFolk”
- Viola – “In the Name of Love”
- Maxim Zavidia – “La La Love”
- Priza – “Rewind”
The Show
As it has been in Moldova lately, then the show was very similar to what could’ve been a Eurovision show, just with a Moldovan touch to it.
As always, welcoming the audience and getting everyone ready for the show, afterwards straight to the 12 performing acts, with a small break here and there, and a small talk in between every 4 performance, to give all the artists a chance for asking the viewers for some extra support.
Voting began as soon as the show started for real, and from here we were presented for the interval act of the first semi-final, which gave us a performance, of various songs in English & Romanian, from Aliona Moon, who represented Moldova back in 2013. 2013 were also the last time Moldova managed to qualify to the Eurovision final, hopefully Moldova can pick an act that maybe can get them back to the finals.
The Voting
Out of the 12 acts, then 8 acts will get the chance to perform once again in the final on the 27th of February. However, 7 of the 12 acts will be picked from a mixed 50% Jury & 50% Televote voting, where the top 7 songs advance to the final. The 8th act will be picked later on, in a discussion show, which take place right after the first semi-final.
The Finalists
Unlike at the Eurovision Song Contest, the point were given in details by televote and jury. The jury gave their points to begin with, where each jury member presented all their given points, where
the points afterwards were converted to Eurovision points. Where the song that got most points from the jury got 12 points, second place got 10 and so on until 1 point.
Afterwards, after a short commercial the televote results were revealed, which were also converted into Eurovision points, where the most voted song got 12 points, second got 10 points and so on until 1 point as well.
These point were put together and that gave us the following results: (Finalists are in Bold)
- Maxim Zavidia – 19 points
- Doinita Gherman – 17 points
- Valaria Pasa – 17 points
- DoReDos – 14 points
- Valentin Uzun – 10 points
- Viola – 10 points
- Che-MD – 9 points
- Emilia Russu – 8 points
- Valentina Nejel – 5 points
- Criss Jeff – 4 points
- PRIZA – 2 points
- Chris Maroo – 1 points
The 8th finalists was found a little bit later, in a talkshow after the news, in where jury members and some of the competitors, both qualified and non-qualified, discussed about the show.
[UPDATE: 8th Finalist is…]
After the conclusion of the first semi-final, a second round of televoting began where voters could vote for one of the songs, that didn’t finish in top 7 and didn’t qualify straight to the final of “O Melodie Pentru Europa”.
Despite the voting lines were open during the entire talkshow, as well before the show began, only a small amount of televotes were received, in which it ended as following:
- Emilia Russu – 162 Votes
- Chris Maroo – 75 Votes
- PRIZA – 32 Votes
- Criss Jeff – 28 Votes
- Valentina Nejel – 20 Votes
This gives Emilia Russu another chance at representing Moldova, with her song “I Am Not the Same”, when the final takes place on the 27th of February.
During the talkshow, different topics were discussed between the juries, hosts and artists, topics such as, what language would be the best to sing at Eurovision, Moldova in the Eurovision Song Contest, who can represent Moldova(Referring to Eduard Romanyuta who represented Moldova last year. This year, only Moldovan citizens were allowed to participate, unless artists outside Moldova did a duet with a Moldovan singer.)
