San Marino in the Eurovision Song Contest
San Marino has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 9 times, debuting in the 2008 contest, followed by participation from 2011 onward. Having failed to qualify in their first four attempts, San Marino qualified for the Eurovision final for the first time in 2014. Valentina Monetta represented San Marino in 2012, 2013 and 2014, making her the first Sanmarinese singer to participate in three consecutive contests, her most recent representation in 2017 together with Jimmie Wilson, gave her the title of the woman with the most participations in the Eurovision Song Contest. In June 2007, Radiotelevisione della Repubblica di San Marino, the Sammarinese public service broadcaster, indicated interest in joining the contest in the near future, all depending on the interest of the stockholders Italian broadcaster RAI, which had withdrawn from the Contest in 1997. Five months the broadcaster confirmed their participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 in Belgrade; the first Sammarinese entry in the Eurovision Song Contest was Miodio, with the Italian language song "Complice".
San Marino holds the honour of being the 50th country to participate at Eurovision, participating 5th in the first semi-final of the contest. However, Miodio failed receiving just 5 points in total and coming last. Despite this, the winner of the 2008 contest, Dima Bilan, concluded his "Winner's Tour" in San Marino. SMRTV broadcast the full event. SMRTV had planned to compete at the 2009 contest in Moscow, Russia; the Sammarinese Minister of Culture announced shortly after the 2008 contest that they "have good hopes to return". SMRTV announced that it would be reviewing the 2008 contest, would have a decision on 2009 participation by the end of the year, it was rumoured that the country would not be participating in the 2009 contest, following rumours that SMRTV would withdraw due to poor results at the 2008 contest, however SMRTV rebuked the claim and confirmed its interest in the 2009 contest. In the end, SMRTV announced its withdrawal from the 2009 contest, having applied to enter; the broadcaster insisted that this was not due to the poor results of the previous year, but financial difficulties faced by SMRTV.
San Marino did not return for the Eurovision Song Contest 2010, again stating financial reasons preventing participation. The broadcaster announced that it hoped to return to the competition in the future and discussed possible participation in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. SMRTV made an application to participate in the 2011 contest, confirmed, it was the second participation in the ESC for San Marino. The singer Senit was announced as the Sammarinese entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 2011, held in Düsseldorf, Germany, she sang "performed in English. As in 2008, SMRTV broadcast the full event. For the second time, San Marino failed to qualify for the final, coming sixteenth out of nineteen countries, with 34 points. On 17 January, it was confirmed by the EBU that San Marino will be participating in the 2012 edition. SMRTV confirmed on 14 March, that Valentina Monetta would represent San Marino in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in May, she was internally selected by SMRTV. "Facebook Uh, Oh, Oh" was presented as the Sanmarinese entry.
However, it was announced that the song's lyric breached rule 1.2.2.g of the competition, which resulted in the lyric being disqualified. The lyric and the title of the song were changed shortly afterwards to The Social Network Song. Monetta failed to advance to the final. Together with Montenegro, the song was expected to finish either last or second to last, but after the full results were revealed after the final on 26 May, it was revealed that the song ended in 14th place with 31 points, making the entry San Marino's best placing in Eurovision compared to previous years. San Marino confirmed in November 2012. Artist Lys Assia had been rumoured to represent the country with her song "All in your head" which failed to make the national final of Switzerland, but this was denied. Instead, at a press conference in January 2013, Valentina Monetta was revealed as the choice to represent San Marino at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2013, she performed the song "Crisalide" in the second semi-final on 16 May in Malmö.
For the fourth time, San Marino failed to qualify for the final, despite being, unlike previous year, a fans' favourite. However, Monetta scored the best result for San Marino. On 19 June 2013, SMRTV San Marino confirmed they had signed a pre-agreement with Valentina Monetta to represent San Marino at the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 for the third time; this made Monetta the fourth singer to represent a country in three consecutive Eurovisions after Lys Assia for Switzerland and Corry Brokken for the Netherlands, both in the years 1956, 1957 and 1958 and Udo Jürgens for Austria in 1964, 1965 and 1966. She qualified from the first semi-final took the 10th place with 40 points with the song Maybe, just one point ahead of Portugal. In the Grand Final Monetta placed 24th with 14 points. On 11 October 2014, SMRTV revealed; the broadcaster announced in late October 2014 that the Sammarinese entry would be selected via an internal selection. On 27 November 2014, SMRTV revealed that Michele Perniola and Anita Simoncini would represent San Marino at the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest during a press conference.
They performed the song "Chain of Lights" in the second semi final but failed to qualify to the fi
Nana Mouskouri
Ioanna Mouschouri, known professionally as Nana Mouskouri, is a Greek singer. During the span of her music career she has released over 200 albums and singles in at least twelve different languages, including Greek, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Hebrew, Mandarin Chinese and Corsican. Mouskouri became well-known throughout Europe for the song "The White Rose of Athens", recorded first in German as "Weiße Rosen aus Athen" as an adaptation of her Greek song "Σαν σφυρίξεις τρείς φορές", it became her first record to sell over one million copies. In 1963, she represented Luxembourg at the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "À force de prier", her friendship with the composer Michel Legrand led to the recording by Mouskouri of the theme song of the Oscar-nominated film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. From 1968 to 1976, she hosted her own TV show produced by Presenting Nana Mouskouri, her popularity as a multilingual television personality and distinctive image, owing to the unusual signature black-rimmed glasses, turned Mouskouri into an international star.
"Je chante avec toi Liberté", recorded in 1981, is her biggest hit to date, performed in at least five languages – French, English as "Song for Liberty", German as "Lied der Freiheit", Spanish as "Libertad" and Portuguese as "Liberdade". "Only Love", a song recorded in 1985 as the theme song of tv-series Mistral's Daughter, gained worldwide popularity along with its other versions in French, Italian and German. It became her only UK hit single when it reached number two in February 1986. Mouskouri became a spokesperson for UNICEF in 1993 and was elected to the European Parliament as a Greek deputy from 1994 to 1999. In 2015 she was awarded the Echo Music Prize for Outstanding achievements by the German music association Deutsche Phono-Akademie. Nana Mouskouri's family lived in Chania, where her father, worked as a film projectionist in a local cinema; when Mouskouri was three, her family moved to Athens. Mouskouri's family sent her older sister Eugenía to the Athens Conservatoire. Although Mouskouri had displayed exceptional musical talent from age six, Jenny appeared to be the more gifted sibling.
Financially unable to support both girls' studies, the parents asked their tutor which one should continue. The sister conceded that Jenny had the better voice, but Nana was the one with the true inner need to sing. Mouskouri has said that a medical examination revealed she only has one functioning vocal cord and this could well account for her remarkable singing voice, as opposed to her breathy, raspy speaking voice. Mouskouri's early childhood was marked by the German Nazi occupation of Greece, her father became part of the anti-Nazi resistance movement in Athens. Mouskouri began singing lessons at age 12; as a child, she listened to radio broadcasts of singers including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Édith Piaf. In 1950, she was accepted at the Conservatoire, she studied classical music with an emphasis on singing opera. After eight years at the Conservatoire, Mouskouri was encouraged by her friends to experiment with jazz music, she began singing with her friends' jazz group at night.
However, when Mouskouri's Conservatory professor found out about Mouskouri's involvement with a genre of music, not in keeping with her classical studies, he prevented her from sitting for her end-of-year exams. During an episode of "Joanna Lumley's Greek Odyssey", shown on the UK ITV channel in the autumn of 2011, Mouskouri told the actress Joanna Lumley how she had been scheduled to sing at the amphitheatre at Epidauros with other students of the Conservatoire, when upon arrival at the amphitheatre word came through from the Conservatoire in Athens that she had just been barred from participating in the performance there due to her involvement in light music. Mouskouri subsequently began performing at the Zaki club in Athens, she began singing jazz in nightclubs with a bias towards Ella Fitzgerald repertoire. In 1957, she recorded her first song, "Fascination", in both Greek and English for Odeon/EMI Greece. By 1958 while still performing at the Zaki, she met Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis.
Hadjidakis was offered to write songs for her. In 1959 Mouskouri performed Hadjidakis' "Κάπου υπάρχει η αγάπη μου" at the inaugural Greek Song Festival; the song won first prize, Mouskouri began to be noticed. At the 1960 Greek Song Festival, she performed two more Hadjidakis compositions, "Τιμωρία" and "Κυπαρισσάκι". Both these songs tied for first prize. Mouskouri performed Kostas Yannidis' composition, "Ξύπνα αγάπη μου", at the Mediterranean Song Festival, held in Barcelona that year; the song won first prize, she went on to sign a recording contract with Paris-based Philips-Fontana. In 1961, Mouskouri performed the soundtrack of a German documentary about Greece; this resulted in the German-language single Weiße Rosen aus Athen. The song was adapted by Hadjidakis from a folk melody, it became a success. The song was translated into several languages and it went
Lara Fabian
Lara Sophie Katy Crokaert, better known as Lara Fabian, is an Italian-Belgian singer, musician and producer. She has sold over 20 million records worldwide as of September 2017 and is one of the best-selling Belgian artists of all time, she was born in Brussels to a Belgian father and a Sicilian mother. Since 1996 she holds a Canadian citizenship alongside the original Belgian; as of 2015 she lived in Walloon Brabant province in Belgium just outside Brussels. She has since moved back to Montreal. Fabian is the only child of Pierre Crokaert, Flemish, Maria Luisa Serio, a Sicilian. Fabian’s parents recognized her talents early on and enrolled her in the Royal Conservatory of Brussels when she was eight, she sings in eight languages: French, Spanish, Italian, Flemish and Russian. During the 1980s, Fabian won several prizes, she released her first single, "L'Aziza est en pleurs" / "Il y avait" in 1986. In 1988, the RTL TV channel in Luxembourg invited Fabian to represent the country at the 33rd Eurovision Song Contest, held that year in Dublin, Ireland.
The song was a composition by Jacques Cardona and Alain Garcia entitled Croire which reached a respectable fourth place. The single became a hit in Europe. In 1990, Fabian and musical collaborator Rick Allison moved to Montreal, Canada to embark on a career in North America, they started Productions Clandestines. In August 1991, her self-titled French-language debut album, Lara Fabian, was released in Canada and sold over 100,000 copies; the album went gold in 1993, platinum the following year. The success of upbeat Dance-pop singles such as "Le jour où tu partira", "Les murs", "Qui pense à l'amour" gave Fabian radio exposure, she received several nominations at the 1993 ADISQ awards, a poll published around that time voted her Québec's most promising singer. Constant touring in Québec helped Fabian's 1994 album; the album went Gold three weeks after its release, spawned three hit singles: "Tu t'en vas", "Si tu m'aimes", "Leïla". The following year, the album went triple platinum. Fabian received two Félix awards at the 1995 ADISQ gala: Best Show Of The Year and Best Female Singer Of The Year.
In 1996, Walt Disney Studios hired Fabian to voice the character of Esmeralda in the French version of the animated feature The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Disney included "Que Dieu aide les exclus", Fabian's French version of the song "God Help The Outcasts", on the film's English soundtrack album alongside Bette Midler's version. Since 1996 Lara Fabian has held Canadian citizenship alongside her original Belgian passport. After the success of Carpe diem, Fabian signed a contract with the French Polydor label for several albums and Pure was released in June 1997. Pure sold more than two million copies in France; the album won a Félix for Popular Album of the Year at the 1997 ADISQ gala and was nominated for two Juno Awards in the Best Selling French Album category, for Fabian as Best Female Singer. In February 1998, Fabian received the Discovery of the Year award during the Victoires de la Musique Gala. In 1998, Polydor released Carpe diem in Europe. In November 1998, she received the Félix Award for Artist with the Most Recognition Outside Quebec at the'ADISQ Gala'.
In December, she was named as Revelation of the Year by Paris Match, which put her on its cover to mark this occasion. In March 1999, Fabian released her first live album, named Live, which debuted at #1 on the French charts; this helped seal an international recording contract with Sony Music. In May 1999, Fabian was honoured at the World Music Awards in Monaco, where she received Best Selling Record for the Year 1998 for her album Pure. In July 1999, with over six million records sold across Europe, Polydor rereleased Fabian's self-titled debut album. In the summer of 1999, Fabian recorded her first English-language album, Lara Fabian, in New York and San Francisco for the Sony label; the songs were written and produced with Rick Allison and Dave Pickell, Walter Afanasieff, Glen Ballard and Patrick Leonard. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard'Heatseekers' album chart, reached #1 on the French album chart and #2 on the Belgian album chart. For the Asian version of the album, Fabian collaborated with American-Taiwanese pop star Leehom Wang on the song "Light of My Life".
The dance-pop song "I Will Love Again", her first English single, reached #1 on the US Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play, peaked #32 on the Billboard Hot 100, #10 Adult Contemporary, as well as appearing in several international charts. This included the UK Singles Chart, where it peaked at #63; the follow-up ballad, "Love By Grace", entered the Adult Contemporary chart, peaking at #24. In February 2001, "Love By Grace" became the theme song of the lead couple in the Brazilian soap opera Laços de Família, broadcast by TV Globo in Brazil and Portugal. For several weeks, the song was number 1 on Portuguese radio stations; the third single, the dance-pop song "I Am Who I Am", remixed by Hex Hector, did not chart. In Europe, the single "Adagio" charted at #5 on the French singles chart and #3 on the Belgian singles chart. During this period, Fabian recorded songs for several Hollywood motion picture soundtracks, including "The Dream Within" for the Final Fantasy: The Spirits
Solange Berry
Solange Berry is a Belgian singer. In 1958, Berry was the Luxembourgish representative at the Eurovision Song Contest 1958 with the song "Un grand amour". Berry and the song finished joint 9th and last place with the Dutch entry "Heel de wereld" by Corry Brokken, receiving only one point. In 1960, Berry took part in the Belgian national final to represent Belgium at the Eurovision Song Contest 1960, however lost out to eventual winner Fud Leclerc. Solange Berry on IMDb Luxembourg 1958: Solange Berry - Un Grand Amour on YouTube
France Gall
Isabelle Geneviève Marie Anne Gall, better known by her stage name France Gall, was a French yé-yé singer. In 1965, aged 17, she won the Eurovision Song Contest. Between 1973 until 1992, she collaborated with singer-songwriter Michel Berger. Gall was born in Paris on 9 October 1947, to a musical family, her father, the lyricist Robert Gall, wrote songs for Charles Aznavour. Her mother, Cécile Berthier, was a singer as well and the daughter of Paul Berthier, the co-founder of Les Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois; the only daughter of her family, she had two brothers: Claude. In spring 1963, Robert Gall encouraged his daughter to record songs and send the demos to the music publisher Denis Bourgeois; that July, she auditioned for Bourgeois at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, after which Bourgeois wanted to sign her immediately. France was subsequently signed to Philips. At the time, Bourgeois was working for the label as artistic director for Serge Gainsbourg and assumed this role for Gall as well.
He encouraged her to record four tracks with the French jazz musician and composer Alain Goraguer. The first airplay of France's first single "Ne sois pas si bête", occurred on her 16th birthday, it became a hit, selling 200,000 copies. Gainsbourg, who had released several albums and written songs for singers including Michèle Arnaud and Juliette Gréco, was asked by Bourgeois to write songs for Gall. Gainsbourg's "N'écoute pas les idoles". At the same time, Gall made her live debut, she teamed up with Distel's business manager, Maurice Tézé, a lyricist, which allowed her to create an original repertoire, unlike the majority of her contemporaries who sang adaptations of Anglophone hits. Elaborate orchestrations by Alain Goraguer blended styles, permitting her to navigate between jazz, children's songs, anything in between. Examples of this mixed-genre style included "Jazz à gogo" and "Mes premières vraies vacances". Gall and Gainsbourg's association produced many popular singles, continuing through the summer of 1964 with the hit song "Laisse tomber les filles" followed by "Christiansen" by Datin-Vidalin.
Gainsbourg secretly recorded Gall's laughter to use on "Pauvre Lola", a track on his 1964 album Gainsbourg Percussions. Having resisted, Gall gave in to her managers at the end of 1964 and recorded a single intended for children; the song "Sacré Charlemagne", written by her father, set to the music of George Liferman, was a hit in 1965, peaking at number two in France and number five in Turkey. Gall was selected to represent Luxembourg in the Eurovision Song Contest 1965. From the ten songs proposed to her, she chose Gainsbourg's "Poupée de cire, poupée de son." On 20 March 1965, Gainsbourg and Goraguer attended the finals of the song contest in Naples, where the song was "allegedly booed in rehearsals for straying so far from the sort of song heard in the Contest at this point."Although the delivery during the live show may not have been Gall's strongest performance — one critic wrote that Gall's performance was "far from perfect" — another noted that her voice was out of tune and her complexion pale, when Gall called Claude François, her lover at the time after the performance, he shouted at her, "You sang off key.
You were terrible!" — the song impressed the jury and it took the Grand Prix. Success at Eurovision ensured that Gall became more known outside Europe and she recorded "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" in French, German and Japanese. There appears to be no English version released by France Gall, although there was an English cover version by the English 1960s star Twinkle. In 1965, Gall toured France for several months with "Le Grand Cirque de France", a combination of radio show and live circus, her singles continued to chart including the Gainsbourg-penned "Attends ou va-t'en" and "Nous ne sommes pas des anges". She had a hit with the song "L'Amérique" by Eddy Marnay and Guy Magenta. Stewart Mason sums up this early period of Gall's career, culminating in the Eurovision win:lthough many dismissed Gall as a Francophone Lesley Gore, making fluffy and ultra-commercial pop hits with little substance, Gall's hits from this era stand up far better than most. Only Françoise Hardy was making records up to these standards during this era.
Though Gall's high, breathy voice was admittedly somewhat limited, she made the most of it. Dopey hits like "Sacré Charlemagne", a duet with a pair of puppets who were the stars of a children's show on French TV, have an infectious, zesty charm. S. or Great Britain at the time. After a TV film directed by Jean-Christophe Averty and dedicated to the songs of Gall was distributed in the United States in 1965, Gall was sought by Walt Disney to appear as Alice in a musical film version of Alice in Wonderland, after having made Alice into a cartoon in 1951. Although Gall had insisted she did not want to become involved in film work, this was the only project which appealed to her; the project was cancelled after Disney's death in 1966. In 1966, Gall appeared in the television film Viva Morandi, made in the same psychoanalytic
Jean-Claude Pascal
Jean-Claude Pascal, born Jean-Claude Villeminot, was a French comedian and singer. After surviving World War II in Strasbourg, Pascal studied at the Sorbonne before turning to fashion-designing for Christian Dior. While working on costumes for the theater production of the play Don Juan, he was exposed to acting, his first acting role was in the film Quattro rose rosse opposite Anouk Aimée, followed by several films including Die schöne Lügnerin with Romy Schneider and Angelique and the Sultan with Michèle Mercier. Pascal won the 1961 Eurovision Song Contest for Luxembourg with the song "Nous les amoureux", with music composed by Jacques Datin and lyrics by Maurice Vidalin, he represented Luxembourg again in the 1981 contest and finished 11th of 20 with the song "C'est peut-être pas l'Amérique", with words and music he composed together with Sophie Makhno and Jean-Claude Petit. "Lili Marleen" "Nous les amoureux" "C'est peut-être pas l'Amérique" Great Man, as L'interne Marcillac Ils étaient cinq, as Philippe Quattro rose rosse, as Pietro Leandri La Forêt de l'adieu, as Jean-Pierre Judgement of God, as Albert III, Duke of Bavaria Le Plus Heureux des hommes, as Michel Brissac The Crimson Curtain, as The officer Un caprice de Caroline chérie, as Livio Children of Love, as Doctor Jacques Baurain Alarm in Morocco, as Jean Pasqier Le Chevalier de la nuit, as Chevalier Georges de Ségar Tempest in the Flesh, as Gino Royal Affairs in Versailles, as Axel von Fersen Flesh and the Woman, as Pierre Martel The Three Thieves, as Gastone Cascarilla Caroline and the Rebels, as Juan d'Aranda / de Sallanches Bad Liaisons, as Blaise Walter Milord l'Arsouille, as Lord Henry Seymour Le Salaire du péché, as Jean de Charvin The Lebanese Mission, as Jean Domèvre Les Lavandières du Portugal, as Jean-François Aubray Guinguette, as Marco Pêcheur d'Islande, as Guillaume Floury Le Fric, as Jacques Moulin Die schöne Lügnerin, as Tsar Alexander I The Opportunists, as Philippe Brideau Préméditation, as Bernard Sommet The Crossroads, as Javier Le Rendez-vous, as Pierre La Salamandre d'or, as Antoine de Montpezat Sans merveille, as Franck Vol 272, as Marc Le Faux Pas, as Robert The Poppy Is Also a Flower, as Galam Khan Comment ne pas épouser un milliardaire, as Commandant Jean Leroy-Dantec Las cuatro bodas de Marisol, as Frank Moore Indomptable Angélique, as Osman Ferradji Angélique et le Sultan, as Osman Ferradji Unter den Dächern von St. Pauli, as Doctor Pasucha Au théâtre ce soir: Les Français à Moscou, as Blanchet Le Temps de vivre, le temps d'aimer, as Jean Moser Le Chirurgien de Saint-Chad, as Doctor Patrick Villaresi Liebe läßt alle Blumen blühen, as Marquis de Formentière Au théâtre ce soir: Adieu Prudence, as Fred Russel Jean-Claude Pascal Myspace Page: https://www.myspace.com/jeanclaudepascal Jean-Claude Pascal on IMDb
For the most recent participation see
Jacques Lasry (1956)
Willy Berking (1957)
Dolf van der Linden (1958)
Eric Robinson (1960, 1963)
Augusto Algueró (1969)
Norbert Daum (1980, 1985)
Alec Mansion (1987)
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Luxembourg in the Eurovision Song Contest
