Three confirmed: two persistant rumours.

Armenia: Sirusho Harutyunyan

Sirusho (20 yo) singer and songwriter who announced the Armenian televote results during the Helsinki telecast. She has released two albums and was voted Future of Armenian pop music in the first ever Armenian national music awards. (So, think Delta). Her song will be selected from five to seven songs she will perform in January/February.

Israel: Boaz Mauda

Boaz Mauda (20 yo) was the winner of Israeli Idol (Kohav Nolad) season 5, which was the least-watched and saw the public turn off most of the contestants (so, think Natalie Gauci). He will perform five songs at a Kdam of one.

Netherlands: Hind

Hind (22 yo) is a Dutch/Moroccan singer who came third in their Idol show. She has released two albums, has recently visited the Occupied Territories and played a gig with the Arab Orchestra of Nazareth) and shows great taste - her personal favourite Dutch entries is 'Hemel en Aarde' by Edsilia Rombley.

rumoured

Switzerland: Paolo Meneguzzi

Paolo (31 yo) is from the Italian-speaking cantons of Switzerland and has competed at the San Remo music festival four times.

Andorra: Gisela Llado Canovas

Gisela (29 yo) is a Barcelona-born singer who came 8th in Operation Triunfo's first season (so, think Ricky Lee Coulter). Jordi Cubino - who composed the 2006 Word Cup anthem (soccer) - has written "a beautiful, rhythmic, pop song, tailor-made for Gisela and the Eurovision Song Contest" which will be mostly in English with some Catalan.

Iceland gets Cool

The Icelandic national final for Eurovision 2008 is on 16 February. The semi-finals started in late November and include some of the best names in Icelandic music: Birgitta Haukdal, Hafdís Huld (formerly of GusGus, solo album Dirty Paper Cups (2006) is brilliant) and Barði Jóhannsson (creator of the sublime Bang Gang and one of the more strange people in Iceland, even stranger than Hafdis!). Barði & Hafdís Huld have a song each in the Final already (written by them):

'Núna veit ég' - performed by the magnificent Birgitta Haukdal (Open Your Heart, ESC 2003) in a duet with Magni Áseirsson.

Barði Jóhannsson's first creation is a throw back to 90s eurodance - called 'Ho ho ho, we say hey hey hey' - performed by Mercedes Club.

There is also a wildcard final, giving several songs a second chance to make the National Final. Barði has a tongue-in-cheek, cheesy duet in the wildcard show. The song is 'Á ballið á' and it is 'performed' by Böðvar Rafn Reynisson & Tinna Marína Jónsdóttir who are having way too much fun.

Hafdís Huld is singing two entries as well as writing one. She will also be in the wildcard show with 'Boys and Perfume' wearing a pink and chocolate dress.



(Now, she performed this song live in May '07 - so one presumes its going to be invalid if selected).

Halfis Huld's other entry, 'Á gleymdum stað' failed to qualify.

EDU now has a blog

Welcome to EDU's new blog.
We're aiming to have more discussion, musings and temporary links on this blog - as an addendum to the official site: http://eurovisiondownunder.com/.

News on the 2008 Contest will be posted here until the ESC announces the participants in the two Semi Finals to take place (announcement due in Jan 08). Then the EDU site will be its annual update/facelift.