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Norwegian national broadcaster NRK celebrates 60 years of Melodi Grand Prix in honour of that during the last 5 Saturdays we had a chance to watch 5 semi-finals which were reinstated for the first time since 2012. The final is set for 15th of February it will be held at Spektrum in Trondheim and will have a special format. Ten acts will be competing in the final and after all ten acts have been performed there will be the online voting which will last for 5 minutes only and 4 acts will advance further in order to set the gold finals those entries will be paired up into 2 duels, the winner of each duel will advance further to the gold duel which will decide the winner. NRK has revealed the full running order for the final of Melodi Grand Prix 2020

1. Raylee – Wild
2. Didrik & Emil – Out of Air
3. Magnus Bokn – Over The Sea
4. Akuvi – Som du er
5. Kristin Husøy – Pray For Me
6. Rein Alexander – One Last Time
7. Tone Damli – Hurts Sometimes
8. Sondrey – Take My Time
9. Ulrikke Brandstorp – Attention
10. Liza Vassilieva – I Am Gay

Raylee (22) has released her first record when she was 11. In 2008, she starred in the musical “Annie”. Raylee released several songs and is known for both a singer and a dancer. Her first self-written song in English, “Love Me” came out in 2017. Raylee was in a Norwegian TV show “Stjernekamp” both in 2014 and 2015. Her previous attempt to represent Norway at Eurovision was at Melodi Grand Prix 2015 with the song “Louder”.

Didrik & Emil are the famous Norwegian opera brothers this is their first time competing together at Melodi Grand Prix even though both have previously graced the stage of MGP; Didrik Solli-Tangen (32) won the contest in 2010 with song “My Heart is Yours” and represented Norway at ESC 2010 where he came 20th in the final, while Emil Solli-Tangen (28) was a finalist of the contest back in 2013 singing the song “Alone” with Gromth .

Magnus Bokn (25) 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).

Akuvi (25) is an artist, songwriter and entertainer with Norwegian-Ghanaian origin. She grew up in Asker in a very musical family. Her sister Anna-Lisa Kumoji participated in the Melodi Grand Prix 2019 with the song “Holla” where she reached the gold final. When she was 20 Akuvi moved to Cape Town where she experimented with the music genres and she describes the one she performs as “reggae-infuced neo-soul”

Kristin Husøy (18) has rose to fame as participant of “The Voice Norge” last year. She joined the show as she took a gap year after finishing high-school. Kristin plays piano and for her song “Pray for Me” she co-wrote the lyrics with Roel Rats.

Rein Alexander (48) is a famous opera singer which had concerts in Norway, USA, Iceland, UK, Italy and Sweden he also performed in many musicals such as Les Miserables (Jean Valjean); The Jungle Book (Shere Khan) and others.

Tone Damli (31) graced the stage of the contest 11 years ago at Melodi Grand Prix 2009 with the song “Butterflies” where she ended up at 2nd place right after the winner of Eurovision Song Contest 2009 Alexander Rybak. Tone is very popular in Norway and known since 2005 when she ended up as 2nd at the 3rd season of Norwegian version of famous TV show “Idol” at the age of 16. She was a judge at seasons 7 & 8. Tone also participated at Melodifestivalen 2013 with the song “Hello Goodbye”.

Sondrey (25) is R&B, soul artist born in Kenya got a record label contract through the TV Show “The Stream” and participant of “Stjernekamp” 2019 where he ended at 3rd place. His music is inspired by Japanese pop-culture and anime, MJ, Daft Punk and Canadian urban music.

Ulrikke Brandstorp (24) is best known to Norwegian audience as 2nd placed in the TV Show “Stjernekamp” in 2018 and as a competitor of Melodi Grand Prix 2017 with the song “Places” when she ended up in 4th place. Her song “Attention” was written by Mørland (Norway 2015). Since autumn last year she is part of the cast for “Sound of Music” where plays the role of Liesl in the People’s theatre in Oslo.

Liza Vassilieva (30) is born in Murmansk, Russia and moved to Norway at the age of three. At the age of 19, she moved to Trondheim where she has taken a Masters Degree in European Studies. There she came in contact with the local songwriting community. In 2017 one of her songs was released by the K-pop girl group TWICE, entitled “Eye Eye Eyes”. In 2018 she released her single “Third Wheel”. Although she is not gay herself, Liza participates in the MGP with the song “I am Gay” to show solidarity and support as paying a tribute to the LGBT community. Her song symbolizes celebration and freedom to be oneself and although it is a pride song she thinks the message is something that everyone can relate to.

Voting will be done online and possible to all the people living in Norway which registered their account at the link here. Each person has 3 votes per round, which they can distribute as they wish, as it will be three rounds of voting that makes 9 votes total. NRK has prepared a voting list which you can download here it consists out of columns for performance, styling, the MGP factor, Hit potential and modulation.

The votes from the five regions of Norway will be presented by previous MGP entrants:
Margaret Berger for Central Norway (4th at ESC 2013),
Bjørn Johan Muri for West Norway (4th at MGP 2010),
Åge Sten Nilsen for East Norway (member of Wig Wam ESC 2005),
Agnete Johnsen for North Norway (ESC 2016),
Tom Hugo Hermansen for South Norway (member of KEiiNO 6th at ESC 2019);

Who is your favourite of Melodi Grand Prix 2020? Let us know by casting your vote in the poll below! The final is set for Saturday 15th of February and don’t forget to tune in to our live blog at 19:50 CET!