After running an open preselection to find the artist representing Georgia in last year's Eurovision Song Contest, the Georgian public broadcaster GPB opted for a different solution this year: 24-year-old Sofia Nizharadze was internally selected to sing for her home country in Oslo. However, an open call for songs was launched by GPB, asking local and international songwriters to send in their songs for Sofia. Out of these, the following six were picked by an expert jury to be performed live by Sofia in today's national final:
Our World (written by Mikheil Mdinaradze)
Sing My Song (written by Svika Pick)
Never Give In (written by Tinatin Japharidze, Ben Robbins & Billy Livsey)
For Eternity (written by Carlos Coelho & Andrej Babic)
Call Me (written by Brandon Stone)
Shine (written by Hanne Sorvaag, Harry Sommerdahl & Christian Leuzzi)
For each of the six songs, a choreography was designed by the director Lasha Oniani, involving also a live orchestra. Different outfits for each of the performances were created by fashion designer Teona Elizbarashvili. In the end, the winning song will be chosen through a combination of televoting and the verdict of an expert jury.
One of the most famous supporters of Sofia is José Carreras, who had recently performed a duet out of the musical West Side Story together with Sofia. He stated in an open letter: “It was a real pleasure for me to sing with my young, talented and beautiful colleague on New Year’s Eve. It is now a joy for me to hear that you, Sofia, will participate at the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest. I do wish you all the very best - good luck and lots of success from the bottom of my heart for this event and for the future!”
Today's show will be hosted by Davit Katsarava, and it has already been agreed that Sofia will present the winning song also during the Azerbaijani national final, to take place on the 2nd of March in Baku. The Georgian national final can be watched live today at 17:30 CET (20:30 local time) on ESCTVand via satellite on the First Channel of GPB (Eutelsal W7, 36°E). Don't miss it!
