Finland has picked their favourite Darude single: “Look Away” has been chosen as the Finnish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 in Tel Aviv.
Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2019 was held on Saturday in Turku, and this was the eighth time that UMK had been used to select the Finnish entry for Eurovision and the second to involve a single artist.
Darude and Sebastian Rejman were internally selected by YLE to represent Finland in Tel-Aviv. In the show, they performed “Release Me”, “Superman” and “Look Away” on stage, then the winning song was chosen by 50% international jury voting and 50% public voting.
We’ve been lucky enough to talk to Darude about his entry and Eurovision, so make sure to read it, and check out Finland’s choice for ESC below:
Announced acts so far are Srbuk for Armenia, Tamta for Cyprus, Jonida Maliqi for Albania, Eliot for Belgium, Miki for Spain, Serhat for San Marino, Duncan Laurence for The Netherlands, Tamara Todevska for North Macedonia, Michela Pace for Malta, Bilal Hassani for France, Lake Malawi for the Czech Republic, PÆNDA for Austria, Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman for Finland. Michael Rice for the United Kingdom, Sergey Lazarev for Russia, Mahmood for Italy, Kate Miller-Heidke for Australia, D-Moll for Montenegro, Kobi Marimi for Israel, Joci Pápai for Hungary, Jurijus for Lithuania, Leonora for Denmark, S!sters for Germany, Ester Peony for Romania, Victor Crone for Estonia, Roko for Croatia, Carousel for Latvia, and Tulia for Poland. The other countries are expected to reveal their acts in the forthcoming months.
The 2019 Eurovision Song Contest will be hosted at the Expo Tel Aviv in Israel after Netta won last year with the song “Toy”. The two Semi-Finals will take place on 14 May and 16 May with the Grand Final taking place on 18 May. A total of 42 countries will compete in the contest.