Tonight Portugal will begin their quest for their representative in the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest, as the semi-final of Festival da Canção is aired on RTP at 22:15 UTC.
Portugal took a break from the contest last year for financial reasons, but their participation in 2014 was confirmed back in November. This week’s semi-final will feature ten songs, and the top five as voted for by the public will win a ticket to next week’s final, when Portugal’s competitor in Copenhagen will be chosen.
The ten competing songs were written by songwriters invited to write the Portuguese Eurovision entry by RTP. The composers also selected their song’s performer with the approval of RTP. All songs must be in Portuguese, but foreign songwriters were allowed to take part.
The 2014 Portuguese Eurovision selection will consist of a semi-final scheduled to be held on 8 March and a grand final scheduled to be held on 15 March at the Convento do Beato, in Lisbon.
How to watch
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RTP will air the semi-final of Festival da Canção 2014 at 22:15 CET
- RTP 1
- RTP International Satellite (Hotbird 13)
- RTP webcast
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The participants
- Catarina Pereira – Mea culpa (Andrej Babić (m), Carlos Coelho (l))
- Ivo Lucas – Eu vou (João Só (m/l))
- Zana – Nas asas da sorte (Jan Van Dijck (m), Paulo Abreu Lima (l))
- Carla Ribeiro – Mais para dar (Hélder Godinho (m), Marina Ferraz (l))
- Ricardo Afonso – Emoção (Ricardo Afonso (m/l), Luís Fernando (m), Rui Fingers (m))
- Rui Andrade – Ao teu encontro (Marc Paelinck (m), Rui Andrade (l))
- Lara Afonso – O teu segredo (João Matos (m/l), Miguel Ferrador (m/l))
- Raquel Guerra – Sonhos roubados (Nuno Feist (m), Nuno Marques da Silva (l))
- Madalena Trabuco – Coração de filigrana (Tozé Santos (m/l))
- Suzy – Quero ser tua (Emanuel (m/l))
Poll
[polldaddy poll=7860601]
The Artists
Catarina Pereira has previously tried to represent Portugal at Eurovision, and finished second in the national final in 2010 with the song Canta por mim. Andrej Babić, who has written both of Catarina Pereira’s Festival da Canção entries, is a Croatian songwriter who has written many Eurovision songs since 2003. He composed the Croatian entry in 2003, the Bosnian entry in 2005, Slovenia’s entries in 2007 and 2009, and Portugal’s 2008 and 2012 contributions. Andrej has also written many songs which have competed in various national finals, as well as performing as a backing singer for Više nisam tvoja in 2003 and Cvet z juga in 2007.
Portugal will compete in the second half of the first semi-final on the 6th May 2014, and they will have to place in the top ten in order to perform in the final on the 10th May 2014.
Stay tuned to esctoday.com for the latest news on Portugal, Festival da Cançao, and the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest.
