The Late Late Show on Friday, March 5th, will host Eurosong 2010, with the entire show dedicated to selecting Ireland’s entry to this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo at the end of May.
This Late Late Show Eurosong Special, will also celebrate Ireland’s success in the competition with the King of Eurovision Johnny Logan joining Ryan to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his first win, while Dana will also join the panel to mark the 40th anniversary of her win with All Kinds of Everything. The show will also feature special performances by both, as they join Eurovision commentator Marty Whelan to give their opinions on this year’s songs and assess our chances.
Musical theatre star Michael Ball will also join Ryan to reminisce about his own Eurovision experience and give his thoughts on our five finalists.
The finalists will perform in the following order and phonelines will only be opened once all five acts have performed:
DOES HEAVEN NEED MUCH MORE? – PERFORMED BY LEANNE MOORE Written by Tommy Moran & John Waters
RIVERS OF SILENCE – PERFORMED BY LEE BRADSHAW
Music: R. Siegel Lyrics: J. O’Flynn / José Santana
BABY, NOTHING’S WRONG – PERFORMED BY MICHAEL GRAHAM
Music & Lyrics by Michael Graham, Scott Newman & Yann O’Brien
FASHION QUEEN – PERFORMED BY MONIKA IVKIC
Written by Marc Paelinck & Mathias Strasser
IT’S FOR YOU – PERFORMED BY NIAMH KAVANAGH
Written by: Niall Mooney, Lina Eriksson, Marten Eriksson & Jonas Gladnikoff
The winner will be selected decided by 50% regional jury vote and 50% public televote which replicates the recent change to the rules in the Eurovision Song Contest itself.
Over the past 2 years the EBU have introduced changes to the voting system with the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final chosen by a 50/50 combination of jury and televoters. This appears to have answered the criticism often levelled at the voting section of the show.
And in 2010, this 50/50 system will now also apply to the Semi-Final qualifying stage, which Ireland will compete in, as well as to the Grand Final itself. Had this rule been in place for last year’s Semi-Final last year, Ireland would have qualified for the Final.
Last year’s Eurovision, hosted by Russia in Moscow, was deemed to be one of the most successful ever, attracting a total of 124 million viewers – a 17% increase on 2008.
Alexander Rybak’s “Fairytale”, last year’s winning song, became a major hit in Europe and went straight in at number 1 on most European iTunes charts. It also scored a top 3 on the European chart, achieving number 1 in Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Russia and number 2 in Ireland.
INFORMATION ON SONGWRITERS AND PERFORMERS
DOES HEAVEN NEED MUCH MORE? – PERFORMED BY LEANNE MOORE
Written by Tommy Moran & John Waters
This is the second time that song writing duo, John Waters and Tommy Moran, have qualified for the Eurosong Final. Their song “They Can’t Stop the Spring” sung by traditional Irish group Dervish, won the Eurosong 2007 final and went on represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki.
Does Heaven Need Much More will be performed by the winner of the 2008 You’re A Star, 25 year old Leanne Moore from Limerick. Leanne, is thrilled at the chance to compete to represent Ireland in Eurovision. “I can’t wait to get going. I love the song. It says something that I feel very deeply, about the idea that this existence is just one phase of our journey. It’s kind of speculating about how Heaven could be better than the best bits down here! But probably more important it’s a great pop song and I think perfect for Eurovision.”
Leanne is currently doing journalism and radio studies at Griffith College in Dublin, having earlier completed a degree in theology and philosophy at the University of Limerick. John Waters, co-writer of the song, said he is ecstatic that Leanne has agreed to sing ‘Does Heaven Need Much More?’. “When I saw her in You’re a Star, I saw a quality that you very rarely encounter. She can sing beautifully. She possesses a song and breathes herself into it. And, of course, she looks amazing. But beyond that she has this instant likeability. You just want her to go wherever she wants to. I’m especially delighted that with Leanne we’ve broken out of our own generation. I think she will give people a sense of a future Ireland, perhaps one in which we can start dreaming again”.
John Waters is an author and newspaper columnist, who currently writes weekly columns for The Irish Times and The Irish Mail on Sunday. He and co-writer Tommy Moran were childhood friends in Castlerea, Co Roscommon, and as teenagers wrote many songs together. After a 25-year lay-off, they began writing together again in 2004.
RIVERS OF SILENCE – PERFORMED BY LEE BRADSHAW
Music: R. Siegel Lyrics: J. O’Flynn / José Santana
Lee Bradshaw returns to Eurosong 2010 having also been successful in reaching the Eurosong 2009 final where he performed the song “So What”. Lee who is 29 years old has had a lifelong interest in music. At just 17 years of age, Lee travelled the continent with the group “Men2B” who were contracted to President Records in London. Since then Lee has been working on his own material and this year was headhunted by Eurovision legend Ralph Siegel who owns Jupiter Records in Germany.
A man of many talents, Lee has had a wide and varied career including a period as an actor and model, appearing in many musicals and working with many high profile names such as John Rocha, Louis Copeland and featuring regularly in the Brown Thomas Supermodel Fashion Show.
Having grown up in Restaurants, Lee has become a restaurateur himself and currently resides in Kerry. His own award winning bar and restaurant The Station House Bar and Grill is a huge success, and Lee has worked as a restaurant consultant and opened a second restaurant in Kerry now run by his brother. He may be familiar to viewers in the RTÉ TV series “The Restaurant”. Rumour has it that Lee is in the final stages of negotiating a deal for a new bar/restaurant in Dublin.
In the meantime Lee has been busy working closely with legendary German musician, songwriter and producer Ralph Siegel, who is one of the most notable figures at the Eurovision Song Contest. In 1982, Siegel’s song “Ein bißchen Frieden” (A Little Peace), performed by Nicole won the Contest and became a hit in Europe. Ralph has participated in the ESC with 19 songs so far, finishing 8 times in the top 4 and in the top 10 on all other occasions. Ralph hopes to retire next year and is confident that Lee is the perfect choice to end his career on a high note.
BABY, NOTHING’S WRONG – PERFORMED BY MICHAEL GRAHAM
Music & Lyrics by Michael Graham, Scott Newman & Yann O’Brien
Michael Graham was always set to pave a career in the entertainment industry. The foundations of his career were set at an early age where he discovered his love for singing, dancing and acting at the Billie Barry Stage School before refining his skills at The Gaiety School of Acting.
In 1993 at the age of 21, Michael attended an audition for a boy band that became one of Ireland’s biggest international acts. Michael along with Ronan Keating, Stephen Gately, Keith Duffy and Shane Lynch were chosen from hundreds of hopefuls and Boyzone was formed under the watchful eye of manager Louis Walsh. They had a meteoric rise to fame and have sold more than 10 millions albums since 1993. Boyzone also completed sell out tours all over the world and scored five number one records. Mikey has also been responsible for writing/co-writing many of Boyzone’s chart topping songs. He has always had a passion for music producing and songwriting and feels most at ease in his own home studio, Avalon.
Mikey’s other passions include acting and to date he has appeared on RTÉ’s Hollywood Trials, and has acted in two feature films, “Hey Mr. DJ”, with Mike Reid and “Man On the Run” with Ben Kingsley.
28 year-old singer-songwriter Yann O’Brien who hails from Dublin and is a classically trained guitarist. 30 year-old Scott Newman is also from Dublin and is a classically trained , pianist, singer and songwriter. Both musicians are very highly regarded in the music industry and very accomplished in their own right.
Mikey, Yann and Scott met in 2004 through mutual friends and based on their shared musical passion, started a Dublin based music production company where they continue to work on numerous projects together.
FASHION QUEEN – PERFORMED BY MONIKA IVKIC
Written by Marc Paelinck & Mathias Strasser
Fashion Queen is a truly European collaboration. Its lead singer Monika Ivkic is originally from Bosnia (with parents from Croatia and Serbia) and now lives in Austria, Composer Marc Paelinck is a Belgian national who lives in Switzerland, and its lyricist Mathias Strasser is an Austrian citizen who grew up in Germany and currently resides in the United Kingdom. Together, they hope to represent Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest 2010.
Monika Ivkic was born in Gradacac, Bosnia, on June 6, 1989 and spent her early childhood in Bosnia before moving to Vienna, Austria, where she still lives. Monika participated in various casting shows in German-speaking Europe, most notably the fifth season of Deutschland sucht den Superstar (DSDS) in 2008, the German version of American Idol, which she finished in fourth place. During the competition, judges compared her voice to that of
Beyoncé Knowles, who Monika has repeatedly described as her main influence. Following the contest, Monika did not sign a contract with a record label, citing a desire to express herself musically without being bound by the commercial constraints of her home market. She recorded a few songs and released them on her YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/moniceofficial).See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monika_Ivkic
Marc Paelinck toured Europe as a classical pianist, before writing songs for Belgian pop group “Touch of Joy”, scoring nine top five hits in Belgium. He also co-wrote a number of songs for other artists and reached top chart positions in The Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Sweden and South Africa. Over the course of his career, Marc’s songs have been sold more than one million times. Marc has also previously written songs for the Eurovision Song Contest winning the Belgian national finals twice and in 2005 his song finished second at the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest in Kiev.
Mathias Strasser wrote the lyrics for Fashion Queen and has co-written several of Monika’s songs as well as collaborating with her on her autobiography.
IT’S FOR YOU – PERFORMED BY NIAMH KAVANAGH
Written by Niall Mooney, Lina Eriksson, Marten Eriksson & Jonas Gladnikoff
Niamh Kavanagh has been singing for most of her life, but really into her own in 1990 when Alan Parker, director of The Commitments, included Niamh on the film’s hugely successful soundtrack album as main vocalist for the songs Destination Anywhere, Nowhere to Run and Do Right Woman, Do Right Man. She then toured extensively with the group appearing at such illustrious events as the 1992 Grammy Awards in New York and the Commitment to Life Concert in Los Angeles.
In 1993, before an international audience of over 350 million people, Niamh sang the winning entry for Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest. The song, In Your Eyes, went on to achieve double platinum status. Having signed to Arista Records, she took her talent around Europe before flying to Nashville, Tennessee, to make her debut album, Flying Blind. The album, produced by John Jennings, was released to critical acclaim in 1995. Since then, Niamh has been touring and performing, with regular appearances at major venues and events as well as on television and radio. Over the last ten years she has recorded a collaboration album, Together Alone, along with Irish singer/song-writer Gerry Kearney. She has recorded music for a future album under the working title Wonderdrug, and recently added to her long line of collaborations, which include the Dubliners and Mary Chapin Carpenter, with an acclaimed contribution to the Secret Garden album, Inside I’m Singing. Her rendition of Simply You, joins other songs written by Secret Garden and Brendan Graham (who wrote the hugely successful You Raise Me Up), and Niamh found herself sharing album space with Elaine Paige and Barbra Streisand.
Niall Mooney & Jonas Gladnikoff, the writers who brought you “Et Cetera” Ireland’s 2009 Eurovision entry, are back. This time they have been joined by Lina and Marten Eriksson two of Sweden’s most successful writing/production partnerships.
Jonas and Niall have been collaborating for a number years clocking up a large number of National Final appearances around Europe including Lithuania, Bulgaria and Albania. In 2009 Jonas came very close to representing Denmark coming second in their National Final, only to be narrowly beaten by Ireland’s own Ronan Keating. This was made all the more unusual when Jonas found himself co-writer on the Irish entry the same year!!
Niall says, “After last year it is obvious Ireland are going to need something really special to get a high position in the contest”. The answer presented itself when he heard Niamh Kavanagh singing in the National Concert Hall. “Her voice literally raised the roof “, exclaims Niall. “I got talking to Niamh a few months later and she said she’d consider it only if she had a great song. That was the hard bit. Jonas and I literally spent months writing but nothing was really good enough. Then Lina and Marten joined the collaboration and the whole thing clicked”.
Marten and Lina have had many hits across Europe. There biggest successes have been writing for Simon Cowell’s TV show Pop Idol in both Sweden and Germany. Lina co-wrote the Swedish Pop Idol winners song in 2007 “This moment” which went double platinum overnight. Amongst others they also recorded a song and video with Rybak last year and to top it off Marten produced “Et Cetera” for Ireland. “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it “ Niall says. Big ballads do well every year and Ireland was the best at it once. I believe the time is right to be the best again. It takes a lot of courage for a singer to go back after winning 17 years ago. I am already so proud of Niamh for stepping up to the challenge and I think she will make the whole country proud if selected. After all this time……It’s for you!!”