Following the second rehearsal run through yesterday of Macedonia, Italy, Ireland, Georgia, Bulgaria, Belarus, Malta, Armenia and Albania, today we continued with the second rehearsals of the participants. To catch up on the previous day’s rehearsals, please click here.
First up is Anna Trincher singing “Pochny z sebe” for the Ukraine. Anna starts on stage inside a massive “flower bud” with mirrors on the outside, which opens up to reveal her just when she starts to sing. For this rehearsal she was wearing a peach coloured top and jeans, with her top featuring a lot of flowing fabric that looked awesome when the wind machines started. The background graphic features images of waterfalls, the ocean, forest, and a volcano. Her vocals were, for the most part, pretty solid (they were better during the first rehearsal in my opinion) but she hit the high notes with ease. You can see a snippet of Anna’s performance of “Pochny z sebe” here.
Slovenia were up next and Lina Kuduzović and her song “Prva ljubezen”. Her outfit has slightly changed from the first rehearsal – now she is wearing a blue belt with a pink heart with the white dress, which is quite appropriate since “Prva ljubezen” translates to “First Love.” Her hair is also now straight. The background doesn’t change though – it’s still keeping the white-winter theme. Lina’s vocals were fabulous and maintained consistency from the first rehearsal. This is going to look great on television, as you can see here.
Onto Serbia now, and it’s Lena Stamenković performing “Lenina pesma.” There is very little change between the two rehearsals, except now they’ve added the wind and smoke machine for atmosphere. The real star of the performance are Lena’s vocals – they blow everyone away and it is hard to believe they come from someone only 11 years of age! She’s a total natural on stage as well – See for yourself!
The Junior ESC team caught up with Lena in the press centre were she had her Celine Dion moment – check it out here!
Next up is Kamilla Ismailova for San Marino. She will be performing “Mirror” on Saturday night, and there’s been little change from her first rehearsal to today. The white dress with pieces of mirror on it, in addition to the four backing dances dressed in silver bodysuits looks great on stage, and so long as she delivers a good vocal performance she will easily earn San Marino’s best Junior ESC result.
The Junior ESC team also caught up with Kamilla backstage, and here you can see how Kamilla and the dancers merge to create one large mirror dress.
After a short break, next up is Mikhail Smirnov, Russia’s first male solo artist in Junior Eurovision since 2008, with his performance of “Mechta”. This is a very nostalgic ballad, which Mikhail performs on stage with great emotion – you can tell he is a total natural in front of the camera. Very little has changed from his first rehearsal – aside from the ball in the dancer’s hand during the first rehearsal is now gone. There is also a lot of smoke machine use, evoking a very dream-like scene as his song implies. His strong vocals and the visuals will do very well on Saturday night, as you can see here.
Next to perform is The Netherlands’ Shalisa with “A Million Lights,” who again has changed very little from the performance of the first rehearsal – she’s on stage behind the piano, there’s two dancers and two backing vocalists, with the background graphics consisting only of live shots of Shalisa and the dancers. Personally, whilst the dancers are very good, they really distract the viewers from Shalisa who should be the star of the song. It’s a nice song though, which you can view below.
Next up is Montenegro’s Jana Mirković singing Oluja. For this performance she is wearing her stage outfit – a blue patterned dress teamed with a navy leather jacket. During the song intro she also wears a band around her waist with yellow fabric that the dancers hold on to as they move around her, but is removed when the first verse begins. The song is full of energy and movement and Jana looks and sounds great on stage.
The final country to rehearse today were Australia, with Bella Paige singing “My Girls.” Like many countries today, very little has changed on stage between the first and second rehearsals for Bella, she’s still wearing her black top-gold skirt combo and has two other dancers with her on stage. There isn’t as much movement on stage, which is a smart move on Australia’s part as it lets Bella’s voice shine. She’s battling Lena for the best vocal of the day – they actually give me goosebumps!.
Who had the best performance today? And who do you think has improved the most since Day 2. Let us know in the comments!
