Rumour has it Greece have selected their entrant for the Eurovision Song Contest 2020. The name? According to OGAE Greece, it’s Dutch-Greek singer Stefania Liberakakis! And she won’t have to travel far to make it to Rotterdam…
Stefania: From Junior Eurovision to Eurovision
The rumour of Greece picking Stefania is not new. However, according to OGAE Greece, the contract will be signed in a matter of days. Once the singer has put pen to paper, ERT will announce her imminently. The news comes just days after ERT announced they were hoping to pick their artist before Christmas.
Stefania Liberakakis, known under the mononym Stefania, was born in Utrecht in 2002. That’s right, she was born in the Netherlands to a Greek family. Aged just 17, she already has quite the record. Five years ago, she made it to Team Marco Borsato on The Voice Kids. A few years later, she flew the Dutch flag at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2016 as part of Kisses. The group finished in eighth place with 174 points.
In 2018, Stefania dropped her first solo single, “Stupid Reasons”. Joachim Vermeulen and Maarten ten Hove wrote the song for the then sixteen year old singer. The official video has over a million views on YouTube. It has not gone unnoticed in Greece, where ERT and MAD saw Stefania’s rising popularity with a lot of joy. She was even invited to perform “Con Calma” alongside Konnie Metaxa and Ilenia Williams during the MAD VMA 2019 awards. Her latest single, “Turn Around” was released last month.
An experienced team
According to OGAE Greece, the youngster will not go to Eurovision without an experienced team. It seems well-known Eurovision veteran Dimitris Kontopoulos will write her a true pop banger. Kontopoulos has been responsible for many Eurovision songs, such as “Scream”, “This Is Our Night” and “Shady Lady”.
Alongisde Kontopoulos, the staging could well be in the hands of Fokas Evangelinos. He is no stranger to the Eurovision Song Contest either. The stage director has a thing for boxes, having directed “Shady Lady”, “Hold Me” and “La Venda” before. His biggest success dates back to 2005, when he directed Greece’s only winner “My Number One” by Helena Paparizou.
The team will be responsible for trying to bring Greece back to their glory days of the Eurovision Song Contest. The country reigned throughout the early 2000s, but their last top ten result dates back to 2013. Their best result since then is a nineteenth place, achieved by Demy. That makes their recent best result on par with that of San Marino at the bottom of the leaderboard. ERT will be hoping to turn their fortunes around by picking a young, aspiring musician for Rotterdam.
