Moldova’s Zdob şi Zdub & Advahov Brothers at the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest
EBU/Sarah Louise Bennett
10 acts are competing in Saturday night's 'Etapa Naţională' final in Moldova - with the Balkan nation all set to choose its entry to the 67th Eurovision Song Contest.
HOW TO WATCH: The 'Etapa Naţională' final is happening at 18:00 CET on Saturday 4 March. Moldovan broadcaster TRM are offering up 3 ways for us to watch it, however we'd prefer: via their own website, via YouTube, or via Facebook.
It's all eyes on Chișinău on Saturday evening, as Moldovan broadcaster TRM hosts the big final of Etapa Naţională - the national pre-selection to find the country's Eurovision Song Contest entry.
The final lineup of 10 secured their places in Saturday night's main event, after competing in an initial 'live auditions' round at the end of January. During this stage, 30 songs were performed by their artists, with an expert jury selecting 10 to move forward to Saturday's final.
The final will see who'll be selected as the successor to Zdob și Zdub & Advahov Brothers, who gave Moldova an impressive 7th-place finish at the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest in Turin, with their feel-good anthem Trenulețul.
The winner of Etapa Naţională 2023 will be decided by both a public vote and a jury vote, with each side contributing 50% of the total scores.
Amongst the 10 finalists (which you can preview below), we have no less than 3 artists who have already had the honour of representing Moldova on the Eurovision Song Contest stage before: the 2010 and 2017 Moldovan act SunStroke Project; the 2012 Moldovan performer Pasha Parfeny; and the 2013 Moldovan singer Aliona Moon.
As well as the 10 competing entries being performed during the show, TRM have also invited a couple of other artists who have already had their songs selected to represent their countries at the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool. Guest performers on the night will be Sudden Lights from Latvia and Theodor Andrei from Romania.
The Songs
Here are the 10 songs we'll be watching compete on Saturday night, in the running order that they'll be performed in. These performances are from the live auditions round of the Etapa Naţională competition at the end of January.
The Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Malmö, Sweden on Tuesday 7 May (First Semi-Final), Thursday 9 May (Second Semi-Final) and Saturday 11 May (Grand Final) 2024.
