Introducing the 2009 entries: Slovenia

All entries in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest are known, but the actual contest is still six weeks away. As a warm-up, we introduce one of the entries every day in random order. Part twenty-one is dedicated to the entry from Slovenia.

Basic information

The song

Love symphony is a widely instrumental symphonic up-tempo song. It is the entry with the least lyrics these year and these are a declaration of love:

Imagine you and me
We're flying above the sea
Feeling free in this love symphony

The performers

Quartissimo are a string quartet originating from Slovenia and Croatia. The band consists of Žiga Cerar (violin), Matjaž Bogataj (violin),Luke DukariÄ�(viola) and Samo DervišiÄ�(cello). All fourof them graduated from music schools and are experienced musicians having performed in well knownorchestras all over Europe.They joint forces for the Slovene national final for the Eurovision Song Contest 2009.

Martina Majerle is a student of economics butshe is also a singer. As a backing vocalist, she has taken part in the Eurovision Song Contestthree times already: for Croatia in 2003,when ClaudiaBeni performed Više nisam tvoja, for Slovenia in 2007 when Alenka Gotar sang Cvet z juga and for Montenegro's Stefan Filipovic in 2008 with the song Zauvijek volim te.Meanwhile, she has become a member of the RTV orchestra in Coratia.

Quartissimo were originally supposed to perform Love symphony alone in the national final, but Martina Majerle joined them as the rules of the national selection requires vocals in each competing song. However, they still competed under their band name alone and could win the selection. In Moscow, they will perform as Quartissimo feat. Martina.

The national selection

RTVSlo introduced a new format for their national selection EMA this year. Only one semi final was held with 14 acts competing. Eight of them qualified for the grand final, where they met six acts that were pre-qualified. In the final, the jury and the televoters disagreed once again. The televoting favourites Skupina Langa & Manca got not a single point from the jury while the jury favourites Quartissimo were only seen fourth by the televoters. However, on balance they could win the ticket to Moscow.

Slovenia in the Eurovision Song Contest

Slovenia entered the Eurovision Song Contest as an independant country in 1993, when they had hosted andwon the semi final in Eastern Europe. Since then the country has finished in the top ten only three times in a final including their best result – two seventh places – in 1995 and 2001. 2007 was the only time Slovenia manged to qualify from the semi final under the current format. Under the flag of Yugoslavia, songs from Slovenia took part in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1961 (which was the debut of Yugoslavia), 1962, 1966, 1967,1970 and 1975.

Sloveniji s skupino Quartissimo & Martino Majerle želimo veliko sre�e in obilico uspeha v Moskvi!

Videos

National final performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4bYA9Pjd6M

The Slovene version of the song (Simfonija):

Martina Majerle as a backing singer and dancer for Croatia in 2003:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBuJq6V2Vgw

Other parts of this series

1. France
2. Portugal
3. Romania
4. Denmark
5. Netherlands
6. Cyprus
7. Latvia
8. Ireland
9. Malta
10. Armenia
11. Germany
12. Serbia
13. Belgium
14. Greece
15. Croatia
16. Poland
17. Czech Republic
18. Iceland
19. Moldova
20. Switzerland

Tomorrow, we will take a look at the Andorran entry.

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