Turin 2022🇪🇪 Estonia

First quarter-finalists for Eesti Laul 2022 revealed

The first quarter-final begins November 20!

Earlier this year Estonian broadcaster ERR announced their participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022, taking place in Turin, Italy. Following this, they later revealed their intention to expand the format of selection show, Eesti Laul 2022 to include a quarter-final stage. After going through over 200 submissions, tonight during Ringvaade, ERR has revealed the first 10 acts taking part in the first quarter-final of Eesti Laul 2022.

Eesti Laul 2022 quarter-final 1 line up

Tonight during the Estonian TV show, Ringvaade, ERR announced the first ten acts taking part in Eesti Laul 2022. Below are the first quarter-finalists, alongside the names of their entries and songwriting teams.

  • Boamadu – ‘Mitte kauaks’ (Peeter Priks, Keith Mutvei)
  • Evelin Samuel – ‘Waterfall’ (Glen Pilvre, Priit Pajusaar, Katrin Pärn)
  • Fiona and Me – ‘Feel Like This’ (Fiona and Me)
  • Jaagup Tuisk – ‘Kui vaid’ (Jaagup Tuisk, Rita Bavanati, Lauri Räpp)
  • Kéa – ‘Everytime’ (Andrei Zevakin, Ketter Orav)
  • Little Mess – ‘Hea päev’ (Timo Vendt, Tanja Mihhailova-Saar, Andra Teede)
  • Maian – ‘Meeletu’ (Maian Lomp, Gevin Niglas)
  • Peter Põder – ‘Koos lõpuni’ (Peter Põder, Raul Krebs)
  • Stig – ‘Interstellar’ (Stig Rästa, Victor Crone, Herman Gardarfve, David Lingren Zacharias, Fred Krieger)
  • Traffic – ‘Kaua veel’ (Karl Killing, Andreas Poom, Fred Krieger, Silver Laas, Vallo Kikas)

Among the line up includes – Eurovision 2015 artist Stig Rästa and Eurovision 1999 artist Evelin Samuel, as well as returns for former Eesti Laul participants Traffic (2009, 2012, 2014, 2020), Jaagup Tuisk (2020), Little Mess (2020) and Kéa (2021). Meanwhile Stig is collaborating with Eurovision 2019 representative Victor Crone and Little Mess are working with Eurovision 2014 artist Tanja.

New Eesti Laul format

This year it is all change for the Estonian national final, Eesti Laul. In order to give more prominence to Estonian language entries, as well as English ones, it was revealed in September that the selection would be expanded to 40 entries across four quarter-finals. Every Saturday, during the quarter-finals, five songs in each show will advance to the semi-finals. From a combination of three songs decided by public voting and two songs selected by the national jury. However there will be no live performances of the songs. Only music videos for each song will be shown.

Next February the two semi-finals will take place with 10 acts each. From there five songs in each semi-final will progress to the final. Both semi-finals will have two rounds – winners of the first round will be decided by the jury vote and public votes, and winners of the second round will be decided by public voting only.

The grand final of Eesti Laul 2022 will take place in the Saku Suurhall on February 12, (5pm GMT, 6pm CET, 7pm EET and 4am AEDT). The winner will be decided with two rounds of voting. Firstly, a combined 50/50 jury and public vote to determine the top 3 advancing to the super-final. During the super-final, public voting alone will pick the winner to represent Estonia in Turin next May.

Broadcast schedule for Eesti Laul 2022

Below the dates of all the selection shows on ETV are as follows:

  • First quarter-final – November 20
  • Second quarter-final – November 27
  • Third quarter-final – December 4
  • Fourth quarter-final – December 11
  • First semi-final – February 3
  • Second semi-final – February 5
  • Grand final – February 12

The quarter-finals will air at 7:35pm GMT, 8:35pm CET, 9:35pm EET and 6:35am AEDT on ETV, which can be viewed here. Furthermore ERR are planning an additional show called ‘Eesti Laulu’, featuring performances from the super finalists. As of yet there is no date for this show, but it will likely take place between April and May.

New Eesti Laul hosts

Among the announcements today, ERR also revealed new hosts to guide us through the new Eesti Laul format this year. During the first quarter-final, former Estonian representatives, Ines and Tanel Padar will be taking on hosting duties. Back in 2000 Ines earned fourth place with ‘Once In A Lifetime‘. At the time this was Estonia’s best result in the contest. Only one year later, Tanel Padar, along with Dave Benton and 2XL, achieved Estonia’s first and only victory so far, with the fun, novelty entry ‘Everybody’.

Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest

The Baltic country made their Eurovision Song Contest debut in 1994, with Silvi Vrait and her song ‘Nagu merelaine’. Since then, Estonia has participated at the Eurovision Song Contest 26 times, reaching the grand final 16 times. Back in 2001 Estonia achieved their first and to date, only victory in the contest with ‘Everybody‘, performed by Tanel Padar, Dave Benton & 2XL.

In 2020, Estonia selected Uku Suviste to represent Estonia with his song, ‘What Love Is’ which was written by Uku, with Sharon Vaughn and produced by Dimitris Kontopoulos. Unfortunately, the contest was cancelled, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rather than re-select Uku internally, they instead gave him an invitation to compete in Eesti Laul 2021, which he accepted. In a field of 24 acts, Uku won Eesti Laul for the second year in a row with ‘The Lucky One‘. However, this success failed to translate in Rotterdam. Performing 2nd in semi-final two, he finished 13th with 58 points.

Which act in the first quarter-final of Eesti Laul 2022 are you looking forward to? Let us know! Be sure to stay updated by following @ESCXTRA on Twitter, @escxtra on Instagram and liking our Facebook page for the latest updates! Also, be sure to follow us on Spotify for the latest music from your favourite Eurovision acts. As well as YouTube to see our reactions to the news in the run up to the 2022 contest in Turin!

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