San Marino: Spotlights on for Senit!

Stand By is the title of the Sammarinese entry, an nostalgic ballad performed by charismatic Senit. Fitting the mood of the song, the light scenery on stage during her first rehearsal today created a club atmospherem with spotlights on the musicians.

Additional smoke effects were applied, covering the whole stage floor and creating fountains of smoke in the back. The LED screens in the background remained dark. Senit showed a vocally strong performance today, proof that she's an experienced artist on live stages.

During the rehersal, Senit also showed the dress she will wear in the First Semi-Final to the cameras. It is designed by the famous Elizabeth Emanuel, who also, among many other creations, designed Lady Diana's wedding dress. "I will wear it in my rehearsal on the 5th, but it's not finished yet. It's a beautiful dress, and very tight!", she explained to Eurovision.tv prior to her rehearsal.

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On stage, Senit was accompanied by two guitar players and three backing vocalists. Their choreography was created by Shaun Fernandes, who has a great track record, having worked with the United Kingdom in 1993, 1994 and 2002. This time, he will try to do the same for San Marino.

"It will be a really elegant and sophisticated performance. The song is a soft rock ballad. I have two musicians from England and backing vocalists from Poland, San Marino and the Netherlands. I'm myself Italian with parents from Eritrea, so this is an international team. It's cool that we can do something together", Senit explained.

When Senit was asked if she had got any advice for her Eurovision Song Contest performance, she said she had met Miodio, who were the first representatives of San Marino in 2008. "They told me not to worry and have fun. It's a big nice game, so enjoy! And it's true, right now I don't feel the competition. But we will see on the 10th!", she stated. 

Apart from that, she visited almost 40 countries in her promo tour. This allowed her to hear all the other songs. "It was tough with all the travelling, but really nice. The quality is very high, I didn't expect so many nice songs!", she told.

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Senit started the press conference by introducing her delegation. She went on to explain her connections with Germany as she had performed a role in the musical Lion King in Hamburg previously. Asked about the possibilities of a sustainable career in music in the tiny Republic of San Marino, the Head of Delegation, Alessandro Capicchioni, explained that the size of the country made it difficult, and Senit's career was obviously not focused on San Marino.

Later, he jokingly added: "We could actually fit the whole population of San Marino in the Arena in Düsseldorf, and there would still be 6000 free seats." He also stressed the fact that San Marino would be ready to host the Eurovision Song Contest in case of a victory, and that the public broadcaster, SMRTV, intended to go on participating in the Eurovision Song Contest in the years to come.

One member of the international press reminded Senit that she had promised she would perform her entry Stand By in Tigrinya, the language of her native country Eritrea, in case of winning the Eurovision Song Contest. She reconfirmed that statement, adding that, if she really won, she would record it even in Japanese, Dutch or any other language.

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Senit has Eritrean origin, was born in Bologna, and has an international background. Her artistic debut was in Switzerland with the musical Fame (1999-2000). In November 2009, Senit had her TV debut. She became the presenter in the programme Urban Charts on HipHopTV, during which Senit, presented several charts and gave information mainly about the world of black music, also inviting well-known international artists as guests.

Senit went to the USA in the spring and summer 2010 to record demos tracks with some of the most important American producers, who had already been working with some other great artists such as Pink, Destiny’s Child, Beyonce, Christina Aguilera and Busta Rhymes. During her stay on the West Coast, Senit also focused on the pre-production of her new album.