RTP, the Portuguese national broadcaster, has unveiled the 20 composers who will compete at the forthcoming edition of Festival da Cançao 2023.

RTP is working round the clock in order to showcase an extraordinary and exciting national selection. The broadcaster received more than 600 entries in quest to find the potential 2023 Portuguese Eurovision entry.  A total of 20 songs will compete in the competition ( 15 selected via an invitation extended to established composers and 5 selected via an open call).

Initially 16 composers were invited to submit an entry but due to unforseen circumstances one of them was not able to submit an entry, hence RTP decided to select five entries via the public call instead of the initially intended four entries.

The 15 invited composers by RTP:

• André Henriques
• April Ivy
• Bandua
• Bárbara Tinoco
• Churky
• Cláudia Pascoal
• Dapunksportif
• Ivandro
• Jacinta
• Neon Soho
• Quim Albergaria 
• Sal
• Teresinha Landeiro
• The Happy Mess
• You Can’t Win Charlie Brown

The sixteen invited composers will join the five composers who have been selected via an open call:

• Edmundo Inácio
• Inês Apenas
• Mimicat
• Moyah
• Voodoo Marmalade

Claudia Pascoal represented Portugal at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon.

Festival da Canção 2023

The 2023 FdC will consist of three shows ( two semi-finals and a grand final) scheduled to be broadcast live in February and March (dates , host cities and venues yet to be determined).

A total of 20 acts will battle for the golden ticket to Liverpoool, 10 acts will compete in each semi-final, the top 6 entries from each semi-final will proceed to the Grand Final of FdC.  Hence 12 acts will fight for the right to represent Portugal at the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest in the Portuguese national final.

RTP has extended an invite to 15 composers to submit their songs for the competition, the composers will be free to chose the artist/s for their respective songs.

Whilst the remaining 5 entries were selected via an open public selection via the following mechanism:

• Open submission for everyone. Composers interested to enter the competition could send their songs to to RTP via [email protected] until 21 October 2022. Portuguese citizens/ residents in Portugal and Portuguese citzens residing overseas are eligible to apply

The 2023 Portuguese Eurovision entry will be determined via a 50/50 public televoting- regional jury deliberation.

Portugal in Eurovision

Portugal debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1964 and has won the competition once, namely in 2017 with Salvador Sobral‘s  Amor pelo dois. The country successfully hosted the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon.

Portugal has competed 53 times in the Eurovision Song Contest.

In 2022 Maro represented Portugal at the Eurovision Song Contest in Turin with her entry ‘Saudade‘ achieving a place 9th in the Grand Final.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQul-rkcGPQ

Source: RTP
Photo credit: RTP