Country Slovenia | Selected song "Love Symphony" | |
Selection process EMA 2009
50% Jury
50% Televoting Selection date(s) Semi-final
31 January 2009
Final
1 February 2009 Selected entrant Quartissimo feat. Martina Majerle Semi-final result Failed to qualify (16th) | ||
Slovenia participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 after the Slovene broadcaster Radiotelevizija Slovenija (RTV SLO), confirmed that Slovenia would appear at the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow and also announced that they would be changing the national final format.
Contents
The winner of EMA 2009 was Quartissimo and Martina Majerle with "Love Symphony", which received full marks from the jury and came fourth in the public televote.
EMA 2009
EMA 2009 was in February 2009, with changes occurring to the format. Instead of two semi-finals of ten songs each, with the top five qualifying for the final as in last year's contest, RTV SLO announced that only one semi-final would be held, containing 14 songs. Six songs invited by RTV SLO automatically qualified for the final, with eight or more songs from the semi-final qualifying for the final. The final of EMA 2009 was held on 1 February 2009, with the semi-final held the day before on 31 January.
It had also been announced that, unlike the previous two years, a 50:50 mix of jury and televoting would return to EMA to select the winner, however in previous years, the results of the jury had not been consistent with public opinion and it would be unknown how the jury results would pan out on the night of the contest. As well as this, there would be no super final to be held against the top two songs, with only one televoting round being held to select the winner.
RTV SLO received 113 for EMA 2009, with 6 entries coming from elsewhere than Slovenia: two entries were from Irish authors; two from the United Kingdom; one from Sweden; and another one from Germany. A jury selected 14 acts to compete in the semi-final. All acts, both semi-final and automatic final qualifiers, were revealed on 3 December.
Both the semi-final and the final were hosted by Peter Poles and Maja Martina Merljak.
Semi-final
The semi-final of EMA 2009 was held on 31 January 2009. The songs and artists that competed were released on 3 December 2008. 14 songs in total competed, with 8 qualifying to the final on 1 February.
The interval act for the semi-final included performances by Darja Švajger, who came 7th for Slovenia in 1995, as well as Slovenia's 2007 entry Alenka Gotar, at the time the only Slovene entry to qualify to the final.
The full results of the semi-final were released after the final, and showed that Quartissimo and Martina Majerle came top in both the televote and jury vote. In joint second was Karmen Stavec and Nuška Drašček.
Final
The final of EMA 2009 was held on 1 February 2009. 14 songs again competed, consisting of the six automatic finalists and the eight semi-final qualifiers. The songwriters of the automatic finalists were those who had achieved remarkable success on EMA in recent years and celebrated some hits in the Slovenian charts. The automatic artists and songwriters were known on 3 December, released along with the semi-finalists, however their song titles were not known until 29 December.
Interval acts during the show were made by Natalija Verboten, Helena Blagne, the 2008 Slovene entry Rebeka Dremelj and the 2008 winner Dima Bilan.
The winner of EMA 2009 was Quartissimo with "Love Symphony", composed by Andrej Babić and Aleksandar Valenčić with vocals performed by Martina Majerle. Second was former Slovene entry Omar Naber while Alya & Rudi and Samuel Lucas came joint third. After the final, however, it became evident that Langa & Manca Špik, who came fifth overall, was the clear favourite with the televoters, gaining 22,294 teleovtes in total, almost 14,000 more than runner-up Čuki and over 17,000 more votes than the overall winner, and 31.5% of the 70,758 total votes.
Promotion
Before competing at Eurovision, Quartissimo and Martina conducted a large promotion tour to promote "Love Symphony". The group performed at the Bosnia and Herzegovina song presentation on 1 March, performing in Slovene, as well as the semi-final of Serbia's Beovizija 2009 on 7 March.
The group performed at the Eurovision Promo Concert on 18 April in Amsterdam.
At Eurovision
Slovenia competed in the second semi-final after Rebeka Dremelj came 11th in the 2008 semi-final. Slovenia performed tenth in the running order of the semi-final, following Denmark and preceding Hungary, where Quartissimo and Martina failed to qualify to the final on 16 May.