Two weeks ago we informed you that Eurovision Young Musicians will be back this year but Croatia won’t be hosting the show. It has been decided that Eurovision Young Musicians 2022 will be held in French city, Montpellier and as the Belgian broadcaster RTBF reveals the date of the contest is 23rd of July this Summer, however the official information by the EBU is yet to be announced.

Belgium has announced their return to the show this year and opened the call for all young musicians between the ages of 12 and 21 to apply to represent the country at this years edition of EYM. Musiq3 and RTBF will be in charge of a selection which consists of two phases, pre selection round based on a video performance and then the performance in front of a jury. The application is available on the following link . Interested musicians can send any questions to eym2022@rtbf.be. Belgium took part at EYM 2018 but failed to qualify prior to that return to the show they took part back in 2006. Out of their 9 participations they qualified to the final twice in 1990 and 1992 and both times their representatives ended on 3rd place.

In addition to Belgium the four other countries confirmed their participation and those are: Czech Republic who will be there for the eight time, their best result was 2nd place in 2016; Poland who won at their debut in 1992 and two times more in 2000 and 2016. Germany who won the contest twice, at it’s inaugural edition in 1982 and 1996, as well as Norway who won the show in 2012. The final of Norwegian selection “Virtuos” is set to take place on 3rd of April the four acts who will compete in the final are: Alma Kraggerud on violin, Sanne Suh Berger playing piano and siblings, Sytske and Bjørg Pas with horn and violin. The winner will receive 100,000 NOK and will wave the Norwegian flag in Montpellier. The countries which won’t take part at Eurovision Young Musicians are Denmark, Slovenia and San Marino

When Eurovision Song Contest 2020 was cancelled the host city was kept but in the case of Eurovision Young Musicians the situation won’t be the same. Zagreb was chosen as the host city of EYM 2020 back in 2019, the venues selected for the show were Zagreb Academy of Music and the King Tomislav Square and the show should’ve taken place between 17th and 21st of June 2020, but it got cancelled due to the pandemic.

Broadcasters of 11 countries which should’ve taken part were: Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Malta, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden as well as Ukraine who planned their return to the show. The countries which decided to withdraw from the planned EYM 2020 were: Albania, Belgium, Hungary, Israel, San Marino, Spain, United Kingdom as well as the winning country of Eurovision Young Musicians 2018, Russia.

The Eurovision Song Contest for Young Musicians is a biennial classical music competition for young people organized by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). It has been held since 1982, when the first edition was held in the city of Manchester (United Kingdom). Since then it has been held continuously. until the 2020 edition. For the 19th edition of the contest, more than 40 countries have participated, and although all the countries that have competed are European, the contest has also been broadcast in other parts of the world such as Australia or Canada. The winner of last EYM held in 2018 was Russian pianist Ivan Bessonov, whose performance is available below.