Watch now: The Swiss national final
15 December 2012 at 01:06 CETAn Italian lullaby, a French chanson, a catchy joke entry and a band involving a 94-years-old musician - that's just a short summary of the versatile mix of styles and acts you can expect to see in the Swiss final tonight.
All nine acts have already achieved a small victory in fact: Being a multi-lingual country, the three public broadcasters organised regional pre-selection heats. The four acts nominated by the German-language channel SF were selected out of 179 proposals in an online contest. The French-language broadcaster RTS picked three acts internally, while the Italian-language channel RTSI organised a radio semi-final, in which two more entries qualified for tonight.
In the final, an international jury, called "Europa Panel" will judge the acts right after their performance. The panel is presided by German comedian Hella von Sinnen. She will be joined by Sanna Thöresson (Sweden), Danijel Ivanovic (Serbia), Claudio Martella (Italy), and Mali Demren (Turkey). However, the power to decide the Swiss representative in Malmö stays solely in the hands of the televoters.
This is the line-up of tonight's final:
- Ally - Catch Me
- Chiara Dubey - Bella Sera
- Carrousel - J'avais rendez-vous
- Anthony Bighead - Do The Monkey
- Heilsarmee - You And Me
- Nill Klemm - On My Way
- Melissa - The Point Of No Return
- Nicolas Fraissinet - Lève-toi
- Jesse Ritch - Forever & A Day
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You can listen to all the entries and watch their official video-clips on the SF website.
Prior to the show, Chiara Dubey (pictured below) had a short talk with Eurovision.tv - she is the only artist in the line-up who has previously participated in a Swiss final, achieving a remarkable third place last year.
"I decided at the last moment to participate, and mostly it was because of my family and friends - they had so much fun last year and wanted to join this journey again", Chiara explains her decision to try her luck once more.
Her song, Bella Sera, was not specifically written for Eurovision, she admits: "This song was the only one "ready" at the inscription moment, a lullaby I wrote last year and that I also personally like. I know it is quite far from the type of songs people expect from this contest, but it doesn't matter. I want to bring something that belongs to me, words and musics that I feel close and I want to share with people, this is a good chance to do it."
"I am anyway really really nervous and also a little scared. I'm going to do the thing I love the most, I know, but this fear is part of the game, at least for me. But it's fine, since it compensates later, with the emotions I get by singing", Chiara Dubey describes her feelings about today.
Will she be the lucky one? We shall find out in the Swiss final, starting at 20:05 CET tonight!