The French public broadcaster, France Televisions, has just confirmed that only eight countries will compete in the next edition of the Eurovision Song Contest for Young Musicians 2022.
Radio France has announced that a total of eight countries will compete at Eurovision Young Musicians 2022 in Montepellier, France.
The list of countries competing in the 2022 edition of Eurovision Young Musicians 2022 has been announced. Austria will return to the competition after not competing in the 2018 contest in Edinburgh, while twelve countries have opted not to compete in this year’s edition.
The competing countries are:
- Austria – ORF
- Belgium – RTBF
- Czech Republic – CT
- France – FTV
- Germany – WDR
- Norway – NRK
- Poland – TVP
- Sweden – SVT
The number of countries announced as competitors is the lowest since the second edition of the contest in 1984. Since 2000, between 11 and 20 countries have participated.
Radio France will host the contest in Montpellier as part of the Radio France Occitanie Montpellier Music Festival and cooperates with France Télévisions in the production of the contest. Eurovision Young Musicians 2022 will take place on 23 July.
The city of Montpellier, a city in the south of France with 300,000 inhabitants, will host the music competition. France TV already hosted Junior Eurovision last December in Paris, the French capital. With this new move, the broadcaster seems to confirm its intention to host all the events of the Eurovision family.
The last edition of the festival for young musicians, which was to be held in Zagreb in 2020, had to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
THE DIFFERENT NATIONAL SELECTIONS
Belgian public broadcaster Belgian Public Television has published details of its national final call for the competition. They are organising a national selection, divided into two stages: a pre-selection on the basis of a video and the selection on the basis of a performance in front of a jury.
Belgian instrumentalists, singers or classical singers between 12 and 21 years of age must send a video of their performance before 15March to the form provided or to [email protected].
Norway, led by the NRK, will hold the national final of its “Virtuos”, a kind of Norwegian Prodigy, on Sunday 3 April. Alma Kraggerud, violin; Sytske Pas, horn; Bjørg Pas, violin and Sanne Suh Berger, piano will fight for the country’s flag in France. The winner receives the Norwegian Soloist Award and is sent to the international final, Eurovision Young Musicians, in Montpellier in July.
France, the host country, has also opened its national call for entries for the competition. To participate, you must post a 5-8 minute video on Youtube or Dailymotion in which you perform a solo part of a work with orchestra and complete the form available on the competition website up to and including 14 March. The selected candidates will take part in a live audition in early April to determine who will represent France in the final of the Young Musicians Competition.
HISTORY OF THE EUROVISION YOUNG MUSICIANS
The Eurovision Song Contest for Young Musicians is a biennial festival organised by the EBU and was first held in 1982. The first edition took place in Manchester, and it was Germany that was crowned the winner thanks to the young pianist Markus Pawlik.
Inspired by the BBC’s successful “Young Musician of the Year” competition, the festival looks for the most virtuosic young musician from all over Europe, who is chosen by a jury of international experts.
Ivan Bessonov from Russia was the latest winner of the festival held in Edinburgh in 2018. Performing the third movement of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, the young Russian managed to win over the jury.
Zagreb was to be the next venue for the festival in 2020, but the health crisis forced the EBU to cancel the competition and postpone it until its next edition in 2022.