It's all about Juliana today!

The Albanian representative in the First Semi-Final of the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest, Juliana Pasha, was the first one to rehearse after lunchbreak today, and she took the stage together with three female backing vocalists and a violin player. She performed her up-tempo pop song It's All About You convincingly, with strong vocals and a well fitting choreography, with the violinist moving around her during the whole song, and kneeling down in front of her once.

During the Albanian performance, the stage was decorated with silver balls and in the background, purple lights were flickering, underlining the strong rhythm of the song. Smoke effects were also used. The Albanian delegation also presented Juliana's dress to the cameras, a black costume with silver elements, while the violin player will wear a black suit.

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"We want to be on stage not just for 3 minutes, but for 6 minutes"

In the beginning of the Albanian press conference, Juliana Pasha confirmed that she was very satisfied with her first rehearsal, although the composer, Ardit Gjebrea, pointed out that they could still do better and that they would focus on further improving the camera work during the second rehearsal. Juliana explained that the stage performance was intentionally kept very basic, without dance choreography, in order to focus on the song and its message.

Then, the backing vocalists were introduced to the press: Joy, Daisy and Glennis are all jazz singers, coming originally from the US. When they were asked to showpiece their talents, they performed the gospel song Oh When The Saints together. The violin player, Olen Cesari, was also introduced to the public, being on of the most famous musicians in Italy who had just recently performed exclusively for the Pope. After that, Juliana performed It's All About You accappella, as a special gift for her husband - which even made the sympathetic singer cry a few tears!

When asked about memories from past Eurovision Song Contests, Ardit Gjebrea told he first watched it as a small child in 1972, when Vicky Leandros won the contest with Après Toi, and since then he had been dreaming of the moment when Albania could join the competition, which finally happened in 2004. Juliana said, what was most important for her about her performance in the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest was to perform not only for three minutes in front of the public, but for six minutes. Will she even manage to perform on TV for nine minutes? We will know that after the Final of the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest!

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Juliana Pasha's career started in the Albanian Radio Television Song Contest in 1999, and in 2000 she was awarded with the Vace Zela prize as the best young vocalist, and almost every year she has won different prizes until now. At the moment, she's working on her first album comprising Christian songs. Her song It's All About You was written by Ardit Gjebrea and Pirro Çako. Ardit Gjebrea is one of the best-known singers in Albania, highly appreciated by the audience. He is also a very well known composer, host and television presenter. Pirro Çako is an Albanian artist born in Tirana known as a composer and singer.