Shortly after confirming their participation in Rotterdam, it was announced that Depi Evratesil would return. Later, it wasthe national final will be taking place on February 15. In total, 12 artists will be competing in the national final, having received 53 applications overall. You can now listen to the entries competing in the selection!
The competing acts for this year’s competition were selected by a jury, where they looked at the validity of the application, as well as the diversity of the music genres submitted. Now, you can judge the taste of these judges for yourself by listening to the entries below:
The competing artists are as follows:
- Athena Manoukian
- TOKIONINE
- ERNA
- Miriam Baghdasaryan
- Agop
- Karina EVN
- Vladimir Arzumanyan
- Hayk Music
- Arthur Aleq
- Gabriel Jeeg
- EVA Rida
- Sergey & Nikolay Arutyunov
A familiar name in the list of participants is Athena Manoukian, who participated in X Factor UK in 2018. In addition to this, she also participated in Greece’s 2008 Junior Eurovision selection. She has previously expressed her interest in participating in the contest last summer. Could she make it to the Eurovision stage this time?
Athena isn’t the only notable name, also competing in this year’s selection is Vladimir Arzumanyan, who won the 2010 Junior Eurovision Song Contest for Armenia with the song ‘Mama‘. Miriam Baghdassarian will also be familiar for some Canadian fans, having finished second on The Voice Canada (La Voix) back in 2018. But will their profiles help them in the eyes of the Armenian public? We will find out February 15th.
Armenia at the Eurovision Song Contest
Armenia debuted at the contest back in 2006 with “Without Your Love” by André. They were the first Caucasus nation to compete at the contest, followed by Georgia (2007) and Azerbaijan (2008). Armenia started strong, achieving five consecutive top 10 finishes between 2006 and 2010. Although intending to participate in 2012, they eventually withdrew due to security concerns around the contest being hosted in neighbouring Azerbaijan.
Armenia has yet to win the contest despite a strong history of results. To date, their best result has been two 4th place finishes. The first was achieved by Sirusho’s “Qélé, Qélé” in 2008, followed by Aram MP3’s “Not Alone” in 2014. However, the country has struggled to retain their strong record in recent years. They have now failed to reach the final on three occasions (2011, 2018 and 2019).
In 2019, Armenia was represented by Srbuk with the song “Walking Out”, finishing 16th in the semi final with 49 points. This is now the country’s worst result at the contest to date. Can Armenia return to its former glory? We hope so!
Which song is your favourite? Are you happy to see Depi Evratesil back? 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 subscribe to our YouTube channel to see our reactions to the news in the run up to Rotterdam!
