The first of four Eurojunior Festival 2004 galas takes place tonight. The show kicks off the beginning of TVE's long procedure to select the Spanish representative for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest that takes place on 20th November in Lillehammer.

Spanish broadcaster TVE uses a quite different system to select their 2004 Junior Eurovision Song Contest representative than other countries do. From tonight on, a total of forty children will participate at four galas. Sixteen of them will proceed to the final gala, four every gala. Three of them are selected by a professional jury, the fourth one by SMS and televoting.

Remarkable is that the children don't sing their self-written song but a song of their idol! In other words: the quality of the self-written songs is not yet a criteria to select the sixteen participants for the fifth and final gala. In this gala, taking place on 27th July, the sixteen children will compete for a ticket to the real final shows that will take place in September.

These are the 10 participants at the first gala and the songs they'll perform:

� Nico (9, Madrid) : Backstreet Boys – As long as you love me
� Blas (12, Murcia) : Joan Manuel Serrat – Lucía
� Álex (9, Barcelona) : David Civera – Rosa y espinas
� Lidia (14, Barcelona) : Christina Aguilera – Ven conmigo
� María Isabel (9, Huelva) : Pastora Soler – Guerra fría
� Abel (12, Cádiz) : Luis Miguel – Te necesito
� Bella (14, Cádiz) : Malú – Aprendiz
� Margarita (13, Sevilla) : Merche – Pasar de los demás
� Anaïs (10, Lleida) : Chenoa – Siete pétalos
� Ruth (11, Alicante) : Fiorda Liso – Yo no te pido la luna

The first gala of Eurojunior Festival 2004 will be broadcast on TVE La Primera tonight from 22.00 CET on. Guest performers are Álex Ubago and 3+2, the group formed by last year's Eurojunior Festival participants Sergio (last year's winner), Diego, Blanca, María Jesús and Irune.