CT, the Czech national broadcaster, has unveiled the ESCZ 2023 competing acts.

A total of 5 acts will be battling for the golden ticket to Eurovision 2023 at the forthcoming Czech national final:

• Maella
• Markéta Irglová
• Pam Rabbit
• RODAN
• Vesna

The Czech Republic will be reverting to a live televised national final for the first time in  15 years.

The Czech national final, ESCZ 2023, will be held in Prague on Monday 30 January and will be broadcast live at 21: 00 CET.

Krystof Samal (Czech Head of Delegation) says:

The level of the songs and artists; and also, the essence of ESCZ to share the talent and
diversity in our music scene made it not very hard but impossible to select 3 finalists therefore we are happy to reveal the 5 finalists that will compete to represent us in Liverpool.

The 2023 Czech Eurovision entry will be determined via a 100% public voting consisting of 70% international and 30% Czech.

CT’s press release reads:

We are also pleased to announce that ČT has come to an agreement with the EBU to broadcast ESCZ live through their YouTube channel for our international viewers. While the Czech audience will be able to watch live and replay it at their leisure on our broadcaster’s streaming platform iVysílání.

The international reception of our decision to bring the format to a live show has been overwhelmingly positive, we are shaking things up to expand the Eurovision/ESCZ brand in Czech Republic and bringing a live show to the mix is a wise step. The show will be substantially in English so the Czech and International audience can enjoy”

Maella

Growing up in Prague, the daughter of a local jazz musician, Maella would often visit the dimly lit, smoke-filled basement jazz bars in the city center. Watching bands through a glowing haze of cigarette smoke that thickened throughout the night, she found herself feeling like she was listening alone, trapped in the aura of the music.

Moving to London at the age of 20, she started developing her own production skills. Maella’s period of sonic reinvention, lead her to refine her dark alt-pop sound to much acclaim. Each of the three previous singles have been played on BBC Introducing in London, with Jess Iszatt ‘falling in love’ with her ‘stunning’ sound and providing her with a Featured Artist slot. Maella is October’s ambassador for Spotify Equals CZ&SK, her image splashed all over Times Square.

Marketa Irglova

Markéta Irglová is an Academy Award winning musician and actor born in Valasske Mezirici in
the Czech Republic on February 28, 1988.

At seven years Markéta began learning the piano as this had been her mother Jana’s own unfulfilled childhood dream. In 2006, Markéta was approached by Irish musician Glen Hansard of the band The Frames to collaborate on music for a small Irish film he had been asked to score. The film was called Once and was being made by The Frames one-time bassist and Glen’s friend, John Carney and wonan Academy Award for best original song (Falling Slowly). Since then, she has lived in Ireland, USA and now lives in Iceland, in 2022 she competed in Söngvakeppnin trying to represent Iceland in Eurovision.

She has released 3 solo albums Anar (2011), MUNA (2014) and LILA (2022)

Pam Rabbit

Pam Rabbit is a Czech singer with Armenian roots. She doesn’t consider herself a musician as much as a creator who does a little bit of everything involving music. Therefore, directing music videos has also become a great passion of hers and she sees them as a refinement of how she meant her song. Her work is inspired by her fictional haunting, yet humorous, tragic world, which helps her understand, explain, and cope with the real one.

The main goal of her work is to be able to let the listener know they’re not the only one who doesn’t understand what’s really going on, and to offer support, laughter, and sometimes tears.

She is known in the Eurovision world since she was a backing vocalist to Mikolas Josef in 2018
at Eurovision in Lisbon and has competed twice on ESCZ in 2019 and 2020. She is very fond of animals. Hence the name Pam Rabbit.

Rodan

With his first ever single Gone, he rose to the top of the charts in Czech radio stations at the turn of 2021, where he was subsequently nominated for Discovery of the Year 2021 and included among the 50 hopefuls of Czech music according to the influential music magazine Headliner.

Even then it was very clear that RODAN was a name to remember. This 20-year-old young man with the face of a boy and a passion for football confirmed it with the release of his debut album Glasses Off in mid-2022, on which he balances between contemporary pop and indie folk with sympathetic ease and captivating intimacy and subtlety in the excellent production of Jan Čechtice (Ohm Square). As a single and video, the album featured a duet with Isabella Noel, I Just Lost a Friend.

Vesna

Vesna is a female band led by singer-songwriter Patricie Fuxova. During their tenure, the band has released two albums, including duets with Vojta Dyk and František Černý (Čechomor). In 2019, Vesna received a nomination for the Anděl Awards and was chosen as a support act by the Scandinavian singer Aurora.

Vesna’s music uses elements of folklore set to modern pop, creating her characteristic combination of dreamy and lively music on stage. The band’s permanent members come from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Russia.

Source: CT
Photo credit: CT