Introducing 2011: Croatia

All songs for the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 have been selected. During the weeks between the national final season and the actual Eurovision Song Contest, we will introduce all 43 entries in random order. Part three of the series is dedicated to the Croatian entry.

Basic information

The song

Celebrate is a classic Eurodance song. The lyrics are an invitation to spend a night out partying, however they can also be seen as a "seize the day" allegory telling people to "celebrate" their lives:

Put your hands up
Let the magic take over your heart
Join us, you'll have a good time
Love is here to stay

Celebrate every single step you take
Stop the world for a moment

The performer

Daria Kinzer was born in Aschaffenburg, Germany to Croatian parents and she currently lives in Vienna, Austria. She has been singing since her childhood and over the years she gained experience as a musical actress and as a backround singer for acts such as singer Reinhanrd Fendrich. Furthermore, she worked as a vocal coach on the Austrian talent search Starmania and as a singer on Dancing Stars, the Austrian edition of Strictly come dancing. Her first CD, a compilation of songs from musicals, was released in 2003.

In 2011, Daria Kinzer competed in Dora, the Croatian national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest in Düsseldorf. Despite only qualifying via wildcard twice, she eventually managed to win the final of the talent search with her version of the song Lahor.

The songwriters

Celebrate was written by Boris �ur�evi� (music and lyrics) and Marina Mudrini� (lyrics). Boris �ur�evi� is best known as a member of Eurodance band Colonia that has also taken part in Dora. He also wrote songs for other acts. Marina Mudrini� has previously written the lyrics of Despair, the English version of the 1998 Croatian Eurovision Song Contest entry Neka mi ne svane.

The national selection

Dora 2011 was organised as a talent search this year. A total of 20 contestants were narrowed down to a top two. Daria Kinzer and Jacques Houdek both performed the same three songs in the final. In the first round, the best song for each singer was chosen and in the second round, the performer was selected.

Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest

Croatia entered the Eurovision Song Contest as an independant country in 1993. After mediocre results during the first two participations Croatia found a run of luck finishing in the top ten six out of seven times in the following years. However, Croatia has not been reaching the top ten in a final since 2001 and was eliminated in the 2007 and 2011 semi final.s However, the Croatian boadcaster gave Yugoslavia its only victory in 1989 and it was also the region the most Yugoslav entries came from. Other Croatian entries under the flag of Yugoslavia took part in 1963, 1965, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1986, 1987 and 1988.

Statistics

This will be Croatia's 19th participation in the Eurovision Song Contest. It will be the fourth in 13 times since the abolishment of the language rule (and the first time since 2004) that the Croatian entry will be performed entirely in English. It will be the eighth time and the first time since 2006 that the country is being represented by a female solo performer.

The song will be performed as the 13th in the final, after the mid-tempo ballad from San Marino and before the mid-tempo song from Iceland. Statistics reveal that four out of six songs have qualified from this spot over the last three years. One of the non-qualifiers was FYR Macedonia in 2009 – they still finished 10th according to the televoting.

Hrvatskoj i Dariji Kinzer želimo svu sreÄ�u i dobar rezultat u Düsseldorfu!

Videos

Live performance in the national final:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhVR4_bdJQs

The preview video featuring the final version of the song:

Dora performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdvQ6XQcgUk

Live performance of Abba's The winner takes it all:

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

Previous parts of the series:

1. Estonia
2. Italy