This morning saw the first rehearsal for Turkish entrant Sibel Tüzün and the song 'Superstar'. Together with her five backing dancers, the representative from Turkey took to the stage to begin preperations for next week's semifinal.

The rehearsal began with a small vocal warm-up for Sibel, while her dancers went over some of their more complicated moves, after which the Turkish performer had some of her sound levels changed. A few more warm-ups and sound changes later, they were ready to go.

The changes in sound levels were evident in the first performance as the sound came over nice and clear. During the run-through, a mistimed dance move resulted in Sibel laughing while trying to continue the song. A key-change has now been added to the song to give it an extra push and the new version sounds great.

A professional performance
As a seasoned professional Sibel turned in strong rehearsals all the way through and wowed the audience with a fantastic performance, complete with a high energy dance routine that looks great on stage. All elements of the performance came together at the right time, the lights, the dance and the vocalsworking in harmony to creative a very impressive stage presence.

During the following press conference Sibel told of how she was asked by Turkish broadcaster TRT to compose and sing a song for this years Eurovision Song Contest in Athens. She composed 3 songs and the song 'Superstar' was chosen from them. After a few mix changes the song is now as we heard it today.

All superstars at heart
When asked if she felt like a superstar, Sibel replied that she felt like a superstar at the moment, but she would like to stop being a superstar after the contest is over. She finished by adding that we are all superstars at heart.

A few questions were asked about forthcoming plans and Sibel told that she would like to release 'Superstar' in Armenia and that the other two songs written for the Turkish selection would also be included on her new album entitled 'Satin'. During the press conference, Sibel sang a few songs in her native language as well as in Greek, to the huge delight of the audience.

Language choice
When asked why she wasn't singing in English to try and achieve the same result as 2003 Turkish winner Sertab Erener, Sibel told that it was the Turkish broadcasters request that the song be in Turkish. While on the subject of Sertab it was asked if she had given any advice to this years entrant. Sibel smiled and said yes, although she was a little protective over what exactly that advice was. Sertab had also wished her luck and told Sibel many stories of Eurovision and its kind family.

Sibel is certainly hoping that the European viewers see her as family and give her their vots in next weeks semifinal where the song 'Superstar' goes head-to-head with 22 other songs for the 10 remaining places in this year's Grand Final on May 20th.