Eurovision: Meet the Acts – Malta, Latvia, Australia, Israel, Greece, Czechia and North Macedonia

We’ll be the first to admit that we’ve fallen behind on our Meet the Artist series – but we’re back on it! You can catch up on our previous entries here:

• Tom Leeb (France)
• Jeangu Macrooy (The Netherlands)
• Tornike Kipiani (Georgia)
• Arilena Ara (Albania)
• Vincent Bueno (Austria)
• Victoria (Bulgaria)
• Sandro (Cyprus)
• Hooverphonic (Belgium)

With a number of acts being announced in the past week or so we’ve compiled a little introduction for them in this superpost.

Destiny – Malta

Junior Eurovision 2015 winner Destiny Chukunyere is the most recent victor of Malta’s The X Factor – and their subsequent Eurovision 2020 entrant. Destiny may also be familiar to UK audiences thanks to her appearance on Britain’s Got Talent in 2017. Further Eurovision expeirence comes in the form of her appearance as a backing vocalist in 2019 ESC entry for Malta, Chameleon. Now those are Eurovision credentials if ever we’ve seen them.

Samanta Tina – Latvia

Other than King Markus Riva, our alternative Latvian Supernova favourite was Samanta Tina whose alternative pop anthem Still Breathing was hit for us. This marked her sixth attempt to represent her native Latvia at the ESC.

Diodato – Italy

Diodato’s entry, Fai rumore, in Italy’s Sanremo 2020 might not have made our favourites, but something about his entry must have struck a chord with Italian audiences. The 39 year old singer has released four albums in his native Italy and has participated in Sanremo in 2014 and 2018, but this marks his most successful attempt.

Montaigne – Australia

Again, another entry that was not our first choice (“It’s not all about you Culture Fix!”), but Montaigne was selected as the victor of Australia Decides. Eurovision.TV notes Montaigne was “ARIA award for Best Breakthrough Artist and a nomination for Best Female Artist on her debut album Glorious Heights. Her second album COMPLEX was released in August to critical acclaim.”

Eden Alene – Israel

Nineteen year old Eden won Israel’s The Next Star earlier this month and will soon compete in The Next Song for Eurovision where the public and a professional jury will choose between four songs for her. Eden is unsurprisingly relatively new to the music industry and is born to Ethiopian parents – who will undoubtedly be very proud of her achievements here.

Stefania – Greece

Malta’s Destiny is joined by another Junior Eurovision competitor, Stefania. The seventeen year old will sing SUPERG!RL in Rotterdam. Stefania previously represented the Netherlands at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2016 as part of the girl group Kisses. Stefania has released four solo singles to date including: Stupid Reasons, I’m Sorry (Whoops), Over and Over Again and Turn Around.

Benny Cristo – Czech Republic

Benny Cristo won the Czech national selection thanks to public and jury votes. With ten years on the music scene, Cristo – he came to public attention after competing on series Superstar in 2009, followed by releasing his debut album Definitely Different in 2010. This was followed by two further studio albums and three EPS – the most recent being 2019’s Kontakt. His 2019 track Aleaio reached #3 in the Czech charts. Benny will represent Czechia with Kemama.

Vasil – North Macedonia

Despite being born in North Macedonia, Vasil moved to the US at the age of seven. Since returning to his native home, Vasil has released three high successful singles: Gjerdan (Necklace), “Patuvam (Travelling) and Mojata Ulica (My Street).