Norwegian national broadcaster NRK celebrates 60 years of Melodi Grand Prix in honour of that they reinstated the semifinals first time since 2012 last week’s semifinal was the third one and dedicated to Central Norway and Kristin Husøy with the song “Pray for Me” qualified to the finals this week another four acts will compete and after two duels and one golden duel (consisting of the winner from the previous two rounds) will reveal us another finalist this time the region will be West Norway. Of course one prequalified entry will be performed and this Saturday it will be Ulrikke Brandstorp with the song “Attention”

The four acts competing in this week’s Semi Final 2 – East Norway are as follows:

1. Hege Bjerk – Pang
2. Magnus Bokn – Over the Sea
3. Nordic Tenors – In This Special Place
4. Oda Loves You – Love Who We Love

Hege Bjerk has finished The Norwegian College of Musical theatre in Oslo and Complete Vocal Institute in Copenhagen. Her debut album “Alt me drømme om” (All I dream about) was published in 2016. The song “Pang” was written and composed by her and produced with the help of her husband and friend and it is about eating disorder and how it affects the life of a person.

Magnus Bokn started his musical career as a teenager first in the band “Royal Oil” and later in the band “Adopting Peter” He participated in Idol 2011 and 2013 and also in The Voice of Norway 2017. He studies pop music and aims to be a singer/songwriter. For the song “Over the Sea” he joined forces with Alexandar Rybak (Norway 2009 and 2018) and JOWST (Norway 2017).

Nordic Tenors is a Norwegian vocal group established in 2003 with the idea to combine classical music and opera with pop music. They were singing toastmasters for His Majesty King Harald’s 70th birthday. The musical genres which they cover at their concerts include: opera, musical, crossover, 60’s music and yodelling. From 2003 til today they had over 900 concerts around Scandinavia and USA. Their Christmas concert tour “Christmas with Nordic Tenors” has been one of most successful Christmas tours all around Norway.

Oda Loves You is the stage name of Oda Evjen Gjøvåg when she was a kid she loved to stand on the doorstep and sing to entertain people passing by, hoping to earn an extra penny and that lead her to realise that the road to becoming an artist and songwriter would be long and she moved to Los Angeles when she was 19 and after 7 years in the USA she came back to Norway where she wrote the songs for a lot of famous artists including Marcus and Martinus and Alan Walker. The choice for the stage name came because it reflects her desire to spread love through music. “The message behind my song is a desire for zero discrimination, that one should love who one wants and feel belonging no matter who one is”, she claims.

You can listen to all four songs on NRK’s official website here (click on the song titles). Once you listened to the songs, let us know which of these four is your personal favorite by voting for it in our poll here: