The five-day workshop for ‘Unser Lied’, the German national selection for Tel Aviv, has come to a close. Running between September 28thand October 2nd, a total of fifteen acts competed.
The 15 acts each recorded a 90 second clip of themselves showcasing their style and vocal capabilities. These clips will then be used by jurors to select the competing acts for the selection.
Held in Maarwegstudio2, in Cologne-Braunsfeld, twenty singers were invited to this stage, having been shortlisted from over 1,000 submissions. An expert panel initially reduced this to a pool of 198, with a 20-member international expert jury bringing this down to 50. The invited acts were the highest rated out of these.
German Eurovision site Prinz ESC were once again invited by NDR to cover the workshop from the ground. The site posted daily updates through a series called ‘Inside Eurovision Workshop 2018’. In addition to reporting the overall mood and format of the workshops, they revealed 11 of the participants.
11 of the 15 acts named
On day one, Prinz ESC posted about the first three confirmed participants in the workshops. These are ‘The Voice of Germany’ alum BB Thomaz, London-based singer-songwriter Sebastian Schub and YouTuber Nicole Cross. On day two, they confirmed Nina Kutschera, yet another The Voice alum. On day three, they announced former “Deutschland sucht den Superstar” winner Daniel Schuhmacher and Dimi Rompos, a semi-finalist on the 5th season of The Voice. This season was eventually won by Eurovision 2016 German entrant Jamie-Lee.
Day four saw the announcement of two more contestants with reality TV experience. These were The Voice season 7 contestant Gregor Hägele and Diana N. Schneider, who had previous appeared on Big Brother and scripted-reality series “Köln 50667”. On day five, they announced two LA-residing artists had competed in the workshops, YouTuber Thilo Berndtand and 21-year-old Aly Ryan. The final act to be announced was also the only confirmed band at the workshops, Berlin trio BARNA.
Broadcaster’s statement – five declined, while four remain unnamed
A statement from Thomas Schreiber and Christoph Pellander after the workshops concluded revealed that five artists declined the invitation. In addition, four of the acts in attendance decided to remain unnamed until the official shortlist is announced.
Among the participants are also artists who at first do not want to be mentioned by name and make their decision to participate dependent on their experience at the workshop – that’s what we understand and respect. A total of 15 of the top 20 were accepted by NDR. The remaining five were not available due to time constraints, having musical plans for 2019 that cannot be combined with the ESC or not seeing themselves on the ESC stage.
Statement from Thomas Schreiber and Christoph Pellander
More acts in the running?
As this stage was intended to have 20 acts, the statement went on to reveal that additional acts were being considered. These acts will also submit 90 second clips to be considered by the shortlisting jury.
In addition, we are working with other acts that will produce a video for the next round of selection outside the workshop but under similar conditions. Based on these videos, the juries will decide who gets on the air and who we hope to see again in the next round, the Song Writing Camp.
According to Prinz ESC, we won’t have to wait much longer for further developments. They announced the final list of participants for Unser Lied fur Tel Aviv (‘Our Song for Tel Aviv’) should be confirmed by ‘the beginning of November at the latest.’ Also next month, the song writing camps are due to take place, with the shortlist of songs due to be produced and mastered before Christmas.
The date for the Unser Lied selection show itself remains unknown, but is expected to take place at some point in February.
Are you looking forward to Unser Lied 2019? Who out of the announced acts do you hope to see in the final selection? Let us know below! Be sure to follow @ESCXTRA on Twitter and like our Facebook page.
Comments on Germany: Unser Lied workshop complete – 11 acts named, 5 declined invite