Portuguese broadcaster RTP have today released the list of people who will be composing the songs of Festival da Canção 2019!
Since 2017, the Portuguese use a system where RTP invites songwriters to write whatever they want and then choose the performing artist themselves!
This year, fourteen of the 16 composers were chosen that way.
The following people are behind next year’s songs:
- André Tentúgal
- Calema
- Conan Osíris
- D’Alva
- D.A.M.A
- Filipe Keil
- Flak
- Frankie Chavez
- Lura
- Mariana Bragada
- Miguel Guedes
- NBC
- Rui Maia
- São Pedro
- Surma
- Tiago Machado
Both Filipe Keil and Mariana Bragada have walked a little bit of a different way towards getting elected.
Filipe has been chosen as the best submissions from the public submissions and Mariana Bragada is from Radio Masterclass, a radio show by Antena 1.
To get a little taste of what some of these songwriters are like:
Conan Osíris‘ ‘Celulitite’, which is quirky pop with heavy Northern African influences:
Surma who with their song ‘Hemma’ serve dreamy pop:
Popular among Portuguese youngsters, D.A.M.A., and their hit ‘Nasty’:
Two semi-finals (on February 16 and 23) will be held with eight entries each. In both semi-finals a professional jury and the televoters will get a 50% say each in which entries qualify to the final on March the 2nd.
In the final seven regional juries will decide the outcome alongside the Portuguese televoters.
Noteworthy: in case of a tie in the semi-finals, the juries get their way, whereas in the final the televoters will have the last word.
Festival da Canção 2018 was won by Cláudia Pascoal with ‘O jardim’, written by Isaura, who appeared with her on stage as well:
The artists these composers have chosen will be announced at a later moment.
