Latvia’s preparations for Eurovision 2019 are already in full swing! As this summer is coming to an end, the country’s national broadcaster LTV is kicking off its submission period for their national selection process Supernova, which will return for its 5th year.

Applications to open; Latvia’s ambitions for 2019

This Monday 3 September sees the beginning of song submissions for the candidate entries and their contributors who wish to take part in the competition and fight for the Latvian ticket to Israel. The process will be open until Sunday 21 October, at 23:59 CEST.

Although the basic format is expected to remain the same, this year sees a remarkable change, when it comes to the eligibility of younger artists to participate. In 2019, the minimum age for an author or performer to submit an entry is reduced to 16 years.

Representatives of the largest Latvian radio stations will make up the initial jury that is going to whittle down the proposed entries. However, the jury members will be aware only of the song titles and not of their authors’ names.

DJ Rudd, who is going to be the jury chairman for 2019, talks about his ambitions from the Supernova project and explains:

We are looking for a radio hit, so it’s only logical that radio people will be the ones who will first evaluate the songs. They are the ones who determine what’s on the radio station every day.

As with last year, LTV aspires to export an international hit from Latvian authors, and of course to further showcase the music industry of the country and its mucisians’ capacity. But this will not restrict foreign artists from participating, as they are still able to submit their entries as composers or performers, as part of a group.

It is also highlighted that the recording quality of the songs is of utmost importance. The candidate performers have to record their songs professionally and represent their own ideas as much as possible. LTV is going to allow minor changes in the songs after the evaluation procedure, but holds the right not to take into account overdue submissions. Regarding this, DJ Rudd states:

In my opinion, the quality of the presented work reflects the artist’s attitude and willingness to represent his country at the largest TV show in Europe.

Latvia at Eurovision 2018

For the 4th time in a row, Latvia selected its 2018 Eurovision entry via their national competition Supernova, initially introduced in 2015. At the final night, the show’s winner was the Latvian-Brazilian young artist Laura Rizzotto.

With her pop song Funny girl, Laura went on to represent the Latvian colours in Lisbon, performing 14th at the second semi-final evening. She finally didn’t manage to qualify to the Grand Final, ending up 12th with 106 points.

Here’s her performance at the second semi-final:

Who’s going to be her successor in 2019?