Ukraine: NTU partly confirms rumours

by Martti Immonen 173 views

The rumors circling round in the Internet are partly true. Preliminarily, Olexandr has chosen Svika Pick�s Hasta la Vista. However, the contract has not yet been signed, and the Ukraine television intends to release the song officially at the head of delegations meeting in Riga on 20-21 March.

So far, we can confirm that Olexandr favours Svika�s song. Olexandr has substantially rearranged the initial version. The words, written by Mirit Shem-Ur, have also been completely revised and rewritten. The song was recorded in Ukraine and played by Ukrainian musicians. A video of the song has been already shot and is currently being produced. According to NTU “the 2003 Ukrainian entry is fully Ukrainian though written by an Israeli composer and songwriter. Thus, it would be inappropriate to call this song an Israeli”. They see no problem in a song being composed for the Ukrainian participant by a foreigner. NTU announced and conducted an open competition for the best song for Olexandr. Both national and foreign composers were invited to participate. NTU received a substantial amount of songs and Olexandr eventually chose just few of those for his final consideration. Svika�s song was the best of the best. It appeared to be the one Olexandr liked the most. Indeed, many famous people from all over Europe (Finland, Sweden, Germany, Malta and more countries) submitted their songs, and many of those were of excellent quality.

A few days ago, Svika Pick visited Ukraine to discuss the final details with Olexandr. Svika was present during the recording of the song witnessing the great changes that were made by Olexandr. His position was that of almost full aproval of the final version produced by Olexandr.

“This all is in no way meant to diminish Svika�s input in the whole process. He did his best everywhere and it is greatly appreciated. We just were trying not to jump into the fire too early”, NTU spokesperson Yuriy Melnyk said.