Tonight: First semi final in Sweden

Tonight, Sweden will kick off Melodifestivalen 2009, its national selection for the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow. Eight acts will each present one song and two will be chosen to move forward to the national final, while another two will be chosen to enter the second chance round.

The show

The show to be broadcast on SVT1 starts at 20:00 CET and it will be hosted by Petra Mede at the Scandinavium in Gothenburg. Eight acts will present one song each and there will be two round of televoting to decide the acts to move forward to the next round. In the first round the top four songs will be chosen and they will be then compete in pair. The song of each pair that gets more votes will go forward to the national final on 14th March, the second placed songs will enter the second chace round on 7th March.

Webcast

A webcast will be made available on SVT's official website hereand on radio here.

Participants

Composer/lyricist in brackets.

1. Nina Söderquist – Tick tock (Johan Lyander, Matti Alfonzetti)
2. Jonathan Fagerlund – Welcome to my life (Samuel Waermö, Didrik Thott)
3. Shirley Clamp – Med hjärtat fyllt av ljus (Henrik Wikström, Bobby Ljungren/Ingela Forsman)
4. Scotta – Jag tror på oss (Lars Diedrison, Martin Hedström/Ingela Forsman)
5. Emilia – You're my world (Emilia Rydberg, Fredrik Figge Bodström)
6. Alcazar – Stay the night (Anders Hansson, Mårten Sanden, Andreas Lundsted, Lina Hedlund, Therese Merkel)
7. Caroline af Ugglas – Snälla, snälla (Caroline af Ugglas, Heinz Liljedahl)
8. Marie Serneholt – Disconnect me (Peter Boström, Tony Nilsson)

Your opinion

You can vote for your favourite in the show here.

In 2008, Sweden was represented by Charlotte Perelli with the song Hero. The song finished 12th in the second semi final but still made it to the final as a jury wildcard. Eventually, it finished 18th with 47 points. It was the first time since 1987/1988 that Sweden finished outside the top ten two years in a row following the Ark's 18th place in 2007. In 2009, Sweden will take part in the first semi final on 12th May.

• Click here to purchase the Melodifestivalen 2008 CD from CDON.COM
• Click here to purchase the Melodifestivalen 2008 DVD from CDON.COM
• Click here to purchase the Melodifestivalen 2007 CD from CDON.COM
• Click here to purchase the Melodifestivalen 50 years double DVD from CDON.COM
• Join the esctoday.com FACEBOOK page here
• Join the esctoday.com FACEBOOK group here