Lithuanian public national final Pabandom Iš Naujo 2023 has completed the search for its representative in Liverpool. The fourth edition of the contest has come to an end after five weeks of competition and we now know that Monika Linkytė will be Lithuania’s representative at Eurovision 2023.
Under the guidance of Giedrius Masalskis, Augustė Nombeko and Richardas Jonaitis, LRT held the grand final of Pabandom Iš Naujo 2023, in which the ten finalists of this year’s edition sought to win the only direct ticket to Liverpool with the support of the public and the jury , and to win the contest.
Monika Linkytė to represent Lithuania at Eurovision
Finally, after five weeks of competition, Monika Linkytė has become the representative of Lithuania at Eurovision 2023 next May after winning the votes of the public and jury with her song “Stay”.
Learn more about Monika Linkytė
Monika Linkytė was born on 3 June 1992 in Gargždai. After finishing high school, she moved to Vilnius to attend Vilnius University, where she studied public health, but dropped out after three semesters. In 2014, he began studying law at Vilnius University, but left in 2016 to study music education at the British and Irish Institute of Modern Music in London.
In 2007, Linkytė competed in the Lithuanian national final for Junior Eurovision 2007 as a 15-year-old, where she finished third. She tried again to represent Lithuania in this case at Eurovision in 2010, when she competed at Eurovizija 2010 with the song “Give Away”. She qualified in the first semi-final and came tenth in the final. She also participated in Eurovizija 2011 and 2012, placing fourth and third in the final with the songs “Days Go By” and “Happy”, respectively. After that, she came second in the second season of Lietuvos Balsas, the Lithuanian version of The Voice.
After the change from Eurovizija to Eurovizijos Atranka, in the 2013 edition Monika Linkytė participated again, with the song “Baby Boy”, written by Sasha Son. She had to withdraw from the competition after the second semi-final after falling ill with laryngitis. The following year, he competed in Eurovizijos Atranka 2014 and came fourth, and the same year he represented Lithuania in the New Wave 2014 contest, coming fourth.
In 2015 she participated in Eurovizijos Atranka again and entered two songs, one of her own composition entitled “Skęstu” in the contest. Although this song was eliminated in the sixth programme, Monika Linkytė won the contest by performing the song “This Time” with Vaidas Baumila. The two represented Lithuania at Eurovision 2015 in Vienna, where they placed seventh in the second semi-final and came 18th in the final.
Since her last participation in the Lithuanian national final, the Lithuanian artist has released several singles, and two albums, one entitled Old Love (2018) and another of live songs in 2020. With her seventh participation in the Lithuanian pre-selection, now under the Pabandom Iš Naujo label, with the song “Stay” she has become the first Lithuanian representative to repeat at Eurovision since the country’s first participation in 1994.
The results of the final of Pabandom Iš Naujo 2023
At the beginning of the programme, a voting period was opened so that viewers at home could support their favourite entry by voting on the voting lines. These votes were added to those of the professional jury composed of Ramūnas Zilnys, Vaidotas Valiukevičius, Monika Liu, Raminta Naujalytė-Bjelle, Ieva Narkutė, Vytautas Bikus, Jievaras Jasinskis, Stanislavas Stavickis-Stano and Gerūta Griniūtė.
The final result was obtained with equal proportions of votes from both the jury and the Lithuanian public, with both having a 50% weighting. The results of the final of the contest were as follows:
Check out the performances of the Pabandom Iš Naujo 2023 Final
Mario Junes – “Do What You Do”
MoonBee – “Rumor”
Justė Kraujelytė – “ESC Need More Fun”
Paulina Paukštaitytė – “Let Me Think About Me”
Beatrich – “Like a Movie”
Rūta MUR – “So Low
Il Senso – “Sparnai
Petunija – “Love of my life”
Gabrielius Vagelis – “Šauksmas
Monika Linkytė – “Stay
Watch the grand final of Pabandom Iš Naujo 2023 again!
PABANDOM IŠ NAUJO, THE HEIR TO EUROVIZIJOS ATRANKA
Pabandom Iš Naujo was born in 2020 as the heir preselection to Eurovizijos Atranka, the Lithuanian preselection used since 1999, which in recent years had brought poor results to the Baltic country.
After a reformulation of the LRT team, in 2020 they opted for this format in which the number of galas was reduced and musical quality was improved. The Roop won the first edition of the renewed Lithuanian pre-selection with ‘On Fire’ and were one of the favourites for Eurovision 2020 until their cancellation by Covid-19.
In 2021, with a direct place in the final assured after the cancellation of Eurovision 2022, The Roop once again won the ticket to Rotterdam with ‘Discoteque ‘. The last edition held at the beginning of 2022 was won by Monika Liu with her song “Sentimentai”. The first participation with a Lithuanian-language song in its history brought Lithuania good results, as it finished 14th in the grand final with 128 points.