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Songwriting camp gets under way in Germany

10 January 2018 at 17:47 CET
A songwriting camp is under way in Germany NDR/Christoph Pellander
The six participants of the German national selection for Eurovision 2018 are attending a three-day song writing residential in Berlin. Up to 15 national and international lyricists, composers and producers will develop songs together with the participating artists.

Germany's search for its next Eurovision entry is continuing. Three broadcasters will air the national selection, Unser Lied für Lissabon (Our Song for Lisbon) on Thursday 22nd February at 20:15 CET; Das Erste, ONE and Deutsche Welle. The six artists in the running to represent Germany at Eurovision 2018 have taken up residency at a special song writing camp in Berlin where they will develop songs with composers and producers from around the world.

Who are the potential hit makers?

Billy Austin

Billy Austin is a U.S. songwriter, singer and multi-instrumentalist. He has written several Billboard Top 40 hits. Among others, Joe Cocker, Lionel Richie, Taylor Swift and Blake Shelton have recorded in his OmniSound Studio in Nashville. In collaboration with the Shedler Music publishing company, he offers successful international song camps in Austria and Nashville.  

Ricardo "Richy" Bettiol

Richardo  comes from Basel and currently lives in Berlin. His genre is danceable pop music. He completed a BA in music production at the PopAkademie Baden-Württemberg and has been a co-author for Cassandra Steen, Ferras, Fahrenhaidt, Wankelmut, Andrew Applepie and others. 

Axel Ehnström

Axel has previous Eurovision experience having represented Finland in the contest in 2011, under the name Paradise Oscar. As an author, he was involved in the writing of songs like Bad Ideas by Alle Farben, which won gold in Germany and Austria and was streamed more than 60 million times on various platforms.  

Alex Freund 

Alex comes from Cologne and has won several gold and platinum awards for his productions. He has worked with such artists as Andreas Bourani, Glasperlenspiel, Silly, Joy Denalane, Revolverheld and Silbermond, as well as the Canadian artist Johnny Reid. He has even toured with Marylin Manson amongst others.

Martin Gallop

Martin comes from Canada and has released several studio albums and has written songs for diverse groups of artists including Udo Lindenberg, Robin Schulz, Till Brönner and Annett Louisan, with whom he also shared the stage on several tours. He has also written for Lena, who won the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest for Germany. He is currently composing for Alma and Nico Santos, among others and has also produced several solo albums.

Loren Nine Geerts

Loren is from The Netherlands and has a diverse musical catalogue, writing for DJs in different genres including dance, electronic and house music as well as pop and rock. She was also the co-author of the song Glowing, with which the Brazilian DJ FTampa was streamed more than eight million times just on Spotify.  

Nisse Ingwersen 

Nisse comes from Hamburg and started her career with German langauge hip-hop. For several years he has also been writing and producing for artists in other genres. He works with Heike Kospach (Cassandra Steen, Adel Tawil), Charlie Grant (Simply Red, Melanie C) and Frank Sieben (official remixes for David Guetta, Nelly Furtado).   

Nina Müller

Nina also lives in Hamburg and has been composing music for film and television since 2013, alone as well as as part of the composer duo Oskar & Oskar. She is a lyricist and songwriter for various German and English language artists and is active with her own artistic projects as a singer and pianist. With her Duo Poems for Jamiro, she won the Hamburg musician’s prize Krach & Getöse in 2014. In December 2017, the duo performed at the Elbphilharmonie.  

Jaro Omar

Jaro started writing music at the age of 14 and later moved to New York and LA where he worked on songs for Ferras, the first artist to be signed to Katy Perry's music label.  Most recently, with Glasperlenspiel, Jaro wrote the album that was published in 2018. He has also worked on songs by Zara Larsson and Vanessa Mdee.  

Quarterhead

Quarterhead is made up of songwriters Josh & Janik. They have received several awards and worked with international songwriters such as Dianne Warren. They have have had, among other things, a gold album (#Zwilling), two nominations for the German Music Industry Award ECHO and worked on a worldwide Mercedes-Benz campaign. 

Rainer Rütsch

Rainer is a songwriter and producer specialising in house and techno music. He has collaborated with musicians from across the world such as house and techno DJ Wankelmut, U.S. singer and songwriter Banks, Swedish singer and songwriter Tove Lo, U.S. rapper Lupe Fiasco, singer and instrumentalist MarieMarie and the KLAN duo from Leipzig.

Thomas Stengaard

Thomas comes from Denmark and was part of the song writing team behind the winning song of Eurovision 2013, Only Teardrops, performed by Emmelie de Forest. In Germany, he has worked for The Baseballs, as well as for Fahrenhaidt, Duné, Carpartk North, Leslie Clio and Cisilia.

Joe Walter

Joe is, along with Jennifer Weist, the core of the successful German band Jennifer Rostock. He also develops text, music and arrangements with Weist. As co-author, he has written for Stefanie Heinzmann, Yvonne Catterfeld and Wincent Weiss. He also wrote the song Bonfire for Felix Jaehn feat. Alma.

Ali Zuckowski  

Ali comes from Hamburg and has written dozens of songs for diverse groups of artists. He co-wrote Conchita's winning song for Austria in Eurovision 2014, Rise Like A Phoenix. As a songwriter and producer, he actively works for Adel Tawil, Udo Lindenberg, Sasha, Alvaro Soler, Sarah Connor, Annett Louisan, Yvonne Catterfeld, Blue and Joy Denalane, among others.

After the writing camp is finished, a decision will be made as to which song is right for which, and how the performance shall be staged during the live show on Thursday 22nd February.

For additional information about the German national selection go to the official website, Eurovision.de.