KEiiNO is Norway's choice for Tel Aviv!

02 March 2019 at 23:35 CET

KEiiNO, winner of Norway's 'Melodi Grand Prix 2019' NRK

The 57th edition of the Norwegian national selection, Melodi Grand Prix, was broadcast from Oslo tonight. Using a combination of public and jury votes, KEiiNO was crowned this year's winner and Norway's representative for Tel Aviv with the song 'Spirit In The Sky'.

Tonight, 10 acts battled for the right to represent Norway at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv at the 2019 edition of Melodi Grand Prix. Norwegian broadcaster NRK revealed the line up in January at a press conference held in Oslo. The finalists, in order of tonight's performance, were:

Hosted by Heidi Ruud Ellingsen and Kåre Magnus Bergh, the show opened with a performance with last years' delegate, Alexander Rybak. The ten finalist songs were then performed, before viewers and ten international jury groups placed their first votes. The juries allotted points in denominations of 1–8, 10 and 12, and the viewers' televotes and jury group votes were equally weighted. While the juries voted strongly in favour of D'Sound and Adrian Jørgensen, the public vote helped add Anna-Lisa Kumoji and KEiiNO to the list of four gold finalists.

In the gold final, the top four acts went through to compete in two sets of pairs and the winner of each was chosen entirely by public vote. First up were Adrian Jørgensen and Anna-Lisa Kumoji, and it was Adrian who was selected to advance. Next, D'Sound and KEiiNO went head to head and, in the end, KEiiNO was the viewers' choice to join Adrian for the golden duel.

After one more performance from both acts and another round of televoting, KEiiNO was announced the winner of Melodi Grand Prix 2019.

About KEiiNO

KEiiNO is the name of a Norwegian-Sami collaboration between artists Fred Buljo, Alexandra Rotan and Tom Hugo. The collaboration began with Tom Hugo and his husband Alex Olsson composing the outline of a song inspired by struggles for equal rights regardless of ethnicity, gender identity and sexuality. Given their long struggle in pursuit of equal rights, including a Sami songwriter in this emerging project made eminent sense. Buljo jumped at the opportunity and Spirit in the Sky was the result.

Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest

Norway made its debut in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1960. The country has finished last more times than any other, however, they've also won the contest three times. Norway's most recent win was in 2009 when Alexander Rybak lead by a landslide, receiving 387 points with Fairytale. Last year, Rybak returned to represent Norway in Lisbon with the song That's How You Write A Song. Coincidentally the 1500th Eurovision song, That's How You Write A Song finished in 15th place.