EUROVISION SONG CONTEST
Düsseldorf 2011
The 55th Eurovision Song Contest will be held in the German city of Düsseldorf this time, get to know the Host City!
The voting Who hasn's heard about the famous douze points? The voting procedure of the Eurovision Song Contest is legendary. This page gives you both the basics as well as a detailed explanation of how the voting procedure works.
Go to: http://www.eurovision.tv/page/dusseldorf-2011/about/voting
The Eurovision weblink contains all the news: national selections, voting, calendar, shows, etc.
This contest is bigger than American Idol - and the entire Europe can vote on this event; the contestants are the best of the best throughout Europe. Many of the former winners can be found on You Tube videos, simply by typing in "Eurovision-Israel", or the individual country's name. It is the "Olympics" of international singers and songs! And, like the Olympics, we often belive the most deserving did not win; politics do have a way of moving into contests between judges and voting and that is merely my own personal observation from listening to previous contestants. For instance, here is a singer I felt should have won in 2008 - Boaz:
Israel Eurovision 2008 Semi Final -Boaz Keilo kan
To date there have been three Israeli victories in the contest. Izhar Cohen and Alphabeta won in Paris in 1978 with the uptempo A-Ba-Ni-Bi. On home ground in Jerusalem the following year, Israel won again, this time with the anthemic Hallelujah performed by Gali Atari & Milk and Honey. The third and possibly most controversial victory came in Birmingham in 1998 when Dana International took top honours with the song Diva.
Israel - Dana International - Diva (live) - Eurovision 1998
Eurovision 1979 Israel - " HALLELUJAH" Lyrics Hebrew-English
Eurovision 1978 Israel "ABANIBI" Lyrics Hebrew-English
and this year, after 13 years, Dana International is back, singing for Israel: It is really great and she has a chance to do well in Eurovision competition.
Eurovision 2011 Israel Dana International - Ding Dong
Will this year be a year for Israel? Now that I have shared information about the contest and its winnters, it's up to you. Israel, we wish you the best of luck!
The Eurovision Song Contest History
At the beginning of the television age in the early 1950’s, the European television landscape offered the image of a political divided and technical fragmented continent. Despite this sober picture of the European television landscape, some rays of hope have risen up to the European television sky in the early 1950’s.
Under these rays of hope, the light of one star has shone very promising: the star of “Eurovision”. The Eurovision emblem is designed in 1954 by Timothy O'Brien (BBC).
At the end of January 1955, Marcel Bezençon (president of the EBU Programme Committee), meeting in Monte Carlo, approved a project for further study: "European song contest" The competition was based upon the existing Sanremo Music Festival, held in Italy, and was seen also as a technological experiment in live television: in those days, it was a very ambitious project to join many countries together in a wide-area international network
Meeting in the Palazzo Corsini in Rome on 19 October 1955 (chaired by Sir Ian Jacob, director general of the BBC) the EBU General Assembly agreed to the organizing of a European Grand Prix to be held in Lugano in the spring of 1956.
The name "Eurovision" was first mentioned in relation to the EBU's network in the London Evening Standard from the 5th of November 1951. Written by the British journalist George Campey, he dubbed the Contest "Eurovision Grand Prix". The "Grand Prix" name was adopted by the Francophone countries, where the Contest became known as "Le Grand-Prix Eurovision de la Chanson Européenne". The "Grand Prix" has since been dropped and replaced with "Concours" (contest).
The Eurovision Network is used to carry many news and sports programmes internationally, among other specialised events organised by the EBU. However, the Song Contest is by far the most high profile of these programmes, and has long since become synonymous with the name "Eurovision".
http://esc-history.com/
Pick your favourite Eurovision Song Contest year to learn everything about the event, the participants, the songs and their performers!
http://www.esctoday.com/annual/contests.php?section=history
