CYPRIOT SINGER-songwriter Evridiki has been unofficially announced as the island’s representative in the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest, which will be held in Helsinki, Finland this coming May.
Although the news does not yet appear on the CyBC website, the team in charge of maintenance and content of the CyBC Eurovision Song Contest site has verified the rumours on their own website pages.
This will be the sixth time the 37-year-old Limassol-born singer, has taken part in the contest. In 1992 and 1994 she achieved 11th place in the contest and participated as a backing vocalist on three other occasions.
Evridiki has been quoted on her official website as saying: “There is no official proposal. I am a fan of Eurovision, I have already participated both as a vocalist and as a contestant, and I really enjoyed it. I think that with a really good song, I might go again!”
The style of this year’s entry is said to be purely new wave pop and is hoped to make a special impact on the audience. The composer is Evridiki’s fianc? Demetris Korgialas.
In a poll by London Greek Radio, Evridiki was the choice of more than 50 per cent of respondents to represent Cyprus in the Contest. Cypriot singer Michalis Hadjiyiannis was nominated by most voters to represent Greece. Last year Cypriot Anna Vissi competed for the Greeks.
Perhaps the biggest revelation regarding the as yet unnamed song is a rumour that parts of it will be sung in French. Some have linked the language swap to a voting strategy, in which Cyprus is hoping to gain a further 12 points from France, to go alongside the maximum points that are already anticipated from Greece, in tactical voting seen every year.
Evridiki says she’s not counting her chickens yet and will have to safely get through the semi-final stage of the local contest, which will be held on May 10, where she will compete against another 27 contestants.
Cyprus, along with the likes of Albania and the Netherlands must first negotiate their way through the semi-finals as a result of having failed to qualify in 2006.
Annette Artani, who represented the island last year, was unsuccessful in making it to the final.
If our singer fails to make it through, it will be the second consecutive year that Cyprus will not feature in the grand final.
Rather than conducting a nationwide competition as in other years, CyBC has this time around chosen to select the artist internally due to time restrictions and certain alterations made to the administrative board of the national broadcaster.
According to a CyBC spokeswoman, official particulars will be released within the next few days.
