Latvia: it's Musiqq for Düsseldorf!
27 February 2011 at 00:41 CETThe winner was chosen in two rounds of voting - the first to select the top 3 and the second to select the winner. The voting was a mixture of televoting (50%) and a specially formed jury (50%).
The participants
The running order of the Latvian final looked like this:
- Evija Sloka - Don't Stop The Dance
- Elīna Krastiņa - Look Back At Me Again
- Ivo Grīsniņš-Grīslis - Cinderella
- The Secretz - Summer Night
- Pieneņu Vīns - You Are
- Jānis Stībelis - Let It Be Me
- Oksana Ļepska - Live On!
- Musiqq - Angel In Disguise
- Blitze - Hop
- D-family - Daylight
- Lauris Reiniks - Banjo Laura
The three songs reaching the so-called "superfinal" were the following:
- Lauris Reiniks - Banjo Laura
- Pieneņu Vīns - You Are
- Musiqq - Angel In Disguise
Blitze's song was composed by Mārtiņš Freimanis - member of the group F.L.Y which participated for Latvia in the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest - who died on the 27th of January, being only 33 years old.
Lauris Reiniks was another member of F.L.Y who represented the country on home soil in 2003.
The procedure
Prior to the final, two semi-finals and a "second chance" round decided about the twelve songs in the Latvian final this year. In the first two semi-finals, five songs out of ten qualified for the final, three chosen by televote while the other two were selected by a specially-formed expert jury. There was another chance for the losers of the first two semi-finals in the "second-chance" round where two more songs reached the final, one selected by televote and the other by the expert jury. Unfortunately, the song by Trianas Parks couldn't be performed in tonight's final due to an illness of the group's lead singer, so in the end, there were just 11 songs present in the final.
If you have missed the Latvian final or if you would like to watch it again, you can do this here at this site.
Latvia didn't reach the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest last year when Aisha's What For missed out on a final spot. Will the country be more successful this year?