Oto Nemsadze will represent Georgia at Eurovision 2019
By Mariam Chanishvili
Wednesday, March 6
Georgian singer Oto Nemsadze will perform for Georgia in the first Semi-Final of the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest on the 14th of May.
He was granted an opportunity to represent Georgia after winning a popular TV show Star of Georgia.
The Grand Final of the show was held at the Tbilisi Concert Hall in Tbilisi. The four finalists of Georgian Idol 2019 competed during the show for the right to represent Georgia at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv.
TV viewers have revealed the winner by voting for their favorite contender by phone calls, SMS or Facebook messenger.
Nemsadze is best known for winning season five of Geostar in 2010. He previously participated in season three of The Voice of Ukraine, finishing second.
Georgia debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2007 with Sopho Khalvashi’s Visionary Dream and is yet to win the competition. The country achieved its best results in the contest in Oslo (2010) and Dusseldorf (2011) when it placed 9th in the Grand Final.
Georgia has competed 11 times in Europe’s favorite television show, the country has partaken in the event every year since their debut in 2007 with the exception of 2009 when the nation opted to stay out of the competition.
In 2018 the Georgians opted for an internal selection and selected the Ethno Jazz Band Iriao to represent Georgia at the Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon with their entry For You. Despite an excellent performance, the country failed to reach Grand Final for the second consecutive year.
It is worth mentioning that Ukraine will not participate in the Eurovision 2019 international song contest, the press service of the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine.
According to the company’s board member Alexandra Koltsova, "due to excessive politicization of the national selection," the broadcasters decided to withdraw from the Eurovision 2019 song contest.
Eurovision has been many times criticized for featuring political elements.
