Daniel Kajmakoski will have high-ranked company on the stage of the Wiener Stadthalle. Three Grammy Award winners will sing Autumn leaves with him at the first semi-final for the FYR of Macedonia. Who are they…? Follow us and check it out.

The artists MERJ (formerly Blackstreet) have confirmed officially that they will sing the entry of the FYROM with the country’s representative Daniel Kajmakoski at the Eurovision Song Contest 2015.

 

MERJ are Mark Middleton, Eric Williams and Jeremy Hanna. They perform, produce, publish and write, and they have been doing it for 20 years. The music style they cultivate is R&B. One of their best known pieces is probably the song No diggity.

In their resumés they include works for Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown, Vibe, Usher or Mary J. Blige.

Their extended experience has earned them a number of accolades. In their shelves stand Grammy Awards, MTV Video and Europe Video Music Awards, Soul Train, BMI and many more.

The performance by Daniel Kajmakoski with MERJ at the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest on 19 May will not be the first collaboration of the four artists. The past month, Daniel and the band joined forces with the Bulgarian singer Bobo for a charity song titled Carry the flame. The song was part of a campaign carried out by the Holiday Heroes Foundation in Bulgaria, whose aim is to aid socially challenged families.

Danile Kajmakoski is thrilled with the prospect of this performance with MERJ. As he said, I can’t believe that my biggest wish will soon become reality! These incredibly talented musicians have always been my idols, I grew up with their music and now I am performing with them on Eurovision stage!

The team that will bring the performance onto the stage

The choreographer and stage director Mojca Horvat will take care of the stage performance. Quite a good asset that the FYROM has incorporated to its team, considering that she has worked on Broadway musicals, Winter Olympics opening ceremonies, theater productions, movies and operas.

What Horvat has revealed so far about the performance is that it will follow the emotion of the song. It’s a ballad. We will try to create a bit of mystery, playing with the lights….

Ivana Rabrenović will be the stylist to Daniel, both on stage and out of the stage. Daniel and Ivana worked together already in X-Factor Adria (the version of the talent show for Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, FYROM and, since 2015, Croatia). Ivana has some Eurovision experience, too, as last year she was part of the FYROM delegation, and in 2007 she was with the Serbian team of the winner Marija Serifović.

Ivana declared that three colors will dominate: black, grey and white; and that goes for Daniel and MERJ. I believe that these three colors look best on camera, she further explained. My goal is to make them look classy and feel good during the whole performance.

The performance by Daniel Kajmakoski and MERJ of Autumn leaves for the FYROM in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 will build a bridge between the United States of America and Europe, in line with the spirit (and slogan) of the Contest’s 60^th edition in Vienna.

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