Source: ESCDaily.com
Image Source: us.123rf.com

In last week’s editorial we saw the history of Albania in the Eurovision Song Contest. As indicated in the title (Salvem el was part of a song chosen that was represented in 2007), today we are going to review Andorra’s background history in the Eurovision.

Andorra’s first appearance in the contest was in 2004 when the Semi finals were introduced. Their first entry was called ‘Jugarem a estimar-nos’, which means ‘We’ll be playing at loving each other’. The song was sung by Marta Roure and was completely sung in Catalan. This entry was chosen from a number of quarter and semifinals, and on March 15th, Marta won the golden ticket to represent Andorra for the first time in Istanbul. On the night she sang 6th place but unfortunately failed to get a ticket to the Grand Final, ending up 18th place with only 12 points.

In 2005, Andorra held a national final between 3 artists, which were chosen from 32 from Eurocasting 2004. In the national final, Marian van de Wal and Mar Capdevila tied for first place but eventually, the youngest jury member chose Marian van de Wal to represent Andorra. In January 2005, Marian sang 3 candidate songs to represent Andorra and the final result was chosen from a mix of SMS votes together with a professional jury panel. The songs she sang were ‘No Demanis (Don’t ask)’, ‘Dóna’m La Pau (Give Me Peace)’ and ‘La Mirada Interior (The Inner Glance)’ which was eventually chosen to represent the country for the 2nd time. One might note that Marian is originally from The Netherlands and runs a small hotel in an Andorran town. This entry was translated in English but on the semi final night the Catalan version was sung. Marian sang 18th position that night but once again failed to win the ticket to the Grand Final, placing 23rd place with a total of 27 votes.

Their next entry was chosen internally. Andorra’s national broadcaster RTVA had a choice of 44 candidates and Jennifer Serrano, better known as Jenny, had won the golden ticket with Sensa Tu (Without You). The song once again was sung in Catalan, despite their previous poor results. In the Athens semi final edition, Jenny sang 4th position in a racy performance. Unfortunately, Sensa Tu ended up last place, 23rd with only 8 points. This is Andorra’s worst result to date.

Again in 2007, Andorra took the decision to choose their song internally. The national broadcaster had over 80 songs to choose from but a panel of 10 members chose the first band to represent Andorra, Anonymous, with the song ‘Salvem el món’ (Save The World). Due to the result in the 2006 edition, Andorra had to face the semi final once again. This was the first entry to be sung with english lyrics during the live show. Although Anonymous didn’t manage to qualify for the Grand Final, they achieved the best result to date for Andorra, placing 12th with a total of 80 points. Rumors surfaced that the song failed due to the political voting as only songs from Eastern Europe had qualified that year.

In 2008, the national broadcaster, once again opted for an internal selection. This time, the selection was criticized by the Association of Andorran Musicians because they believed that the national final process was being abandoned. Despite this, the national broadcaster continued with their plans and chose Gisela, a former Operación Triunfo contestant. Their fifth entry was announced in December 2007 with the name ‘Casanova’. The video and song had been presented to the public in February 2008. For the first time, Andorra’s entry was sung in english with only one line in Catalan during the Semi final. The entry was heavily promoted around Europe and Gisela explained that the performance would be surprising and also innovative. Despite this, Casanova only received 22 points and ended up 16th, thus failing to qualify. Gisela sang 12th place in the 2nd semi final in Belgrade. This was the first year that the semi finals were spread over two nights.

2009 was the last entry of Andorra. The national broadcaster went back to the national selection process. Before this decision was taken, it was believed that Andorra will withdraw from the Contest due to the previous bad results. Despite this, in September, the national selection process was announced. 107 entries all over Europe were received and a jury panel chose 3 artists to compete in the national final. In February 2009, the national final was broadcasted. The 3 artists competing for the golden ticket were, Susanne Georgi, Mar Capdevila and Lluis Cartes. The runaway winner with both the juries and tele-voters was Susanne Georgi with the song ‘La Teva Decisio (Get a Life)’. The song was performed in English and in Catalan. Due to the lack of funds, Susanne only had a small promotion tour. She performed her entry 7th position during the first semi final which was held in Russia. Once again this entry did not qualify for the Grand final, ending up only with 8 points in 15th place.

In December 2009, it was announced that Andorra would not participate in the 2010 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest in Norway due to the lack of funding for the next entry. The national broadcaster still submitted an entry for the contest, in case funding could be found. Unfortunately Andorra was forced to withdraw because ultimately, no funding was found. For the same reason, Andorra did not participate in the 2011 and 2012 editions. Recently, in a meeting held with the head of the EBU, the Andorran Prime Minister said that Andorra will not be in the Eurovision 2013 due to investment cuts.

One must note the following statistics when it comes to points:

- Andorra has received the most points from Spain with a total of 54 points (semifinals and finals included)

- Andorra has given the most points to Spain with a total of 60 points during the final night and Portugal with a total 64 points during both the semi final and final nights

Andorra’s 6 year run in the contest was quite disappointing due to that none of the entries made it to the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest. To this date, it is still unclear if Andorra will return again to the contest. Would you like Andorra to return in the contest?

Next time we will review the history of Armenia in the Eurovision Song Contest!! Stay tuned…