This is a quick sneak peak of an interview with Lee for RTE, who will sing in the Irish Eurosong final this year.

Apparently the song with Ralph Siegel song will have a rock beat that will appeal to a European audience, hmmmm interesting.

IRELAND, 1998 – DAWN MARTIN, ‘IS ALWAYS OVER NOW?’

We’ve had some pretty forgettable songs over the past decade or so. This good’un goes back to the tail end of our ‘golden years’. It’s Dawn Martin from 1998 in Birmingham. I think it’s a really beautiful song; with a lovely performance from Dawn. Quite traditional really and easily one of my favourites.

While we came a respectable 9th, we were very far off the pace set by the top 6, with the very memorable Dana International for Israel winning outright.

A fantastic line up this years Irish Eurovision selection, it appears that the Dustin curse has finally been lifted . See their profiles below

BABY, NOTHING’S WRONG – Mikey Graham
Music & Lyrics by Michael Graham, Scott Newman & Yann O’Brien

Michael Graham was always set to pave a career in the entertainment industry. The foundations of his career were set at an early age where he discovered his love for singing, dancing and acting at the Billie Barry Stage School before refining his skills at The Gaiety School of Acting, Dublin.

In 1993 at the age of 21, Michael attended an audition for a boy band that became one of Ireland’s biggest international acts. Michael along with Ronan Keating, Stephen Gately, Keith Duffy and Shane Lynch were chosen from hundreds of hopefuls and Boyzone was formed under the watchful eye of manager Louis Walsh. They had a meteoric rise to fame and have sold more than 10 millions albums since 1993. Boyzone also completed sell out tours all over the world and scored five number one records. Mikey has also been responsible for writing/co-writing many of Boyzone’s chart topping songs. He has always had a passion for music producing and songwriting and feels most at ease in his own home studio, Avalon.

Mikey’s other passions include acting and to date he has appeared on RTÉ’s Hollywood Trials, and has acted in two feature films, “Hey Mr. DJ”, with Mike Reid and “Man On the Run” with Ben Kingsley.

28 year old singer-songwriter Yann O’Brien who hails from Dublin and is a classically trained guitarist. 30 year-old Scott Newman is also from Dublin and is a classically trained , pianist, singer and songwriter. Both musicians are very highly regarded in the music industry and very accomplished in their own right.
Mikey, Yann and Scott met in 2004 through mutual friends and based on their shared musical passion, started a Dublin based music production company where they continue to work on numerous projects together.

DOES HEAVEN NEED MUCH MORE? – Leanne Moore
Written by Tommy Moran & John Waters

This is the second time that song writing duo, John Waters and Tommy Moran, have qualified for the Eurosong Final. Their song “They Can’t Stop the Spring” sung by traditional Irish group Dervish, won the Eurosong 2007 final and went on represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki.

Does Heaven Need Much More will be performed by the winner of the 2008 You’re A Star, 25 year old Leanne Moore from Limerick. Leanne, is thrilled at the chance to compete to represent Ireland in Eurovision. “I can’t wait to get going. I love the song. It says something that I feel very deeply, about the idea that this existence is just one phase of our journey. It’s kind of speculating about how Heaven could be better than the best bits down here! But
probably more important it’s a great pop song and I think perfect for Eurovision.”

Leanne is currently doing journalism and radio studies at Griffith College in Dublin, having earlier completed a degree in theology and philosophy at the University of Limerick. John Waters, co-writer of the song, said he is ecstatic that Leanne has agreed to sing ‘Does Heaven Need Much More?’. “When I saw her in You’re a Star, I saw a quality that you very rarely encounter. She can sing beautifully. She possesses a song and breathes herself into it. And, of course, she looks amazing. But beyond that she has this instant likeability. You just want her to go wherever she wants to. I’m especially delighted that with Leanne we’ve broken out of our own generation. I think she will give people a sense of a future Ireland,
perhaps one in which we can start dreaming again”.

John Waters is an author and newspaper columnist, who currently writes weekly columns for The Irish Times and The Irish Mail on Sunday. He and co-writer Tommy Moran were childhood friends in Castlerea, Co Roscommon, and as teenagers wrote many songs together. After a 25-year lay-off, they began writing together again in 2004. As well as having their song represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki, one of their songs, Baby, Let Me Buy You a Drink, was recorded by Sinead O’Connor for the fundraising album Water for Life, produced by the Malawi-based development agency Wells for Zoe.

FASHION QUEEN – Monika Ivkic
Written by Marc Paelinck & Mathias Strasser

Fashion Queen is a truly European collaboration. Its lead singer Monika Ivkic is originally from Bosnia (with parents from Croatia and Serbia) and now lives in Austria, Composer Marc Paelinck is a Belgian national who lives in Switzerland, and its lyricist Mathias Strasser is an Austrian citizen who grew up in Germany and currently resides in the United Kingdom. Together, they hope to represent Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest 2010.

Monika Ivkic was born in Gradacac, Bosnia, on June 6, 1989 and spent her early childhood in Bosnia before moving to Vienna, Austria, where she still lives. Monika participated in various casting shows in German-speaking Europe, most notably the fifth season of Deutschland sucht den Superstar (DSDS) in 2008, the German version of American Idol, which she finished in fourth place. During the competition, judges compared her voice to that of Beyoncé Knowles, who Monika has repeatedly described as her main influence. Following the contest, Monika did not sign a contract with a record label, citing a desire to express herself musically without being bound by the commercial constraints of her home market. She recorded a few songs and released them on her YouTube channel here.

Marc Paelinck toured Europe as a classical pianist, before writing songs for Belgian pop group “Touch of Joy”, scoring nine top five hits in Belgium. He also co-wrote a number of songs for other artists and reached top chart positions in The Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Sweden and South Africa. Over the course of his career, Marc’s songs have been sold more than one million times. Marc has also previously written songs for the Eurovision Song Contest. Last year a song he co-wrote with Gregory Bilsen represented Malta in the ESC final and he has also twice won the Belgian national finals. Mathias Strasser wrote the lyrics for Fashion Queen and has co-written several of Monika’s songs as well as collaborating with her on her autobiography.

RIVER OF SILENCE – Lee Bradshaw
Music: R. Siegel Lyrics: J. O’Flynn / José Santana

Lee Bradshaw returns to Eurosong 2010 having also been successful in reaching the Eurosong 2009 final where he performed the song “So What”. Lee who is 29 years old has had a lifelong interest in music. At just 17 years of age, Lee travelled the continent with the group “Men2B” who were contracted to President Records in London. Since then Lee has been working on his own material and this year was headhunted by Eurovision legend Ralph Siegel who owns Jupiter Records in Germany.

A man of many talents, Lee has had a wide and varied career including a period as an actor and model, appearing in many musicals and working with many high profile names such as John Rocha, Louis Copeland and featuring regularly in the Brown Thomas Supermodel Fashion Show.

Having grown up in Restaurants, Lee has become a restaurateur himself and currently resides in Kerry. His own award winning bar and restaurant The Station House Bar and Grill is a huge success, and Lee has worked as a restaurant consultant and opened a second restaurant in Kerry now run by his brother. He may be familiar to viewers in the RTÉ TV series “The Restaurant”. Rumour has it that Lee is in the final stages of negotiating a deal for a new bar/restaurant in Dublin.

In the meantime Lee has been busy working closely with legendary German musician, songwriter and producer Ralph Siegel, who is one of the most notable figures at the Eurovision Song Contest. In 1982, Siegel’s song “Ein bißchen Frieden” (A Little Peace), performed by Nicole won the Contest and became a hit in Europe. Ralph has participated in the ESC with 19 songs so far, finishing 8 times in the top 4 and in the top 10 on all other occasions. Ralph hopes to retire next year and is confident that Lee is the perfect choice to end his career on a high note.

IT’S FOR YOU – Niamh Kavanagh
Music: Niall Mooney, Marten Eriksson & Jonas Gladnikoff Lyrics: Lina Eriksson

Niamh Kavanagh has been singing for most of her life, but really into her own in 1990 when Alan Parker, director of The Commitments, included Niamh on the film’s hugely successful soundtrack album as main vocalist for the songs Destination Anywhere, Nowhere to Run and Do Right Woman, Do Right Man. She then toured extensively with the group appearing at such illustrious events as the 1992 Grammy Awards in New York and the Commitment to Life Concert in Los Angeles.

In 1993, before an international audience of over 350 million people, Niamh sang the winning entry for Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest. The song, In Your Eyes, went on to achieve double platinum status. Having signed to Arista Records, she took her talent around Europe before flying to Nashville, Tennessee, to make her debut album, Flying Blind. The album, produced by John Jennings, was released to critical acclaim in 1995. Since then, Niamh has been touring and performing, with regular appearances at major venues and events as well as on television and radio. Over the last ten years she has recorded a collaboration album, Together Alone, along with Irish singer/song-writer Gerry Kearney. She has recorded music for a future album under the working title Wonderdrug, and recently added to her long line of collaborations, which include the Dubliners and Mary Chapin Carpenter, with an acclaimed contribution to the Secret Garden album, Inside I’m Singing. Her rendition of Simply You, joins other songs written by Secret Garden and Brendan Graham (who wrote the hugely successful You Raise Me Up), and Niamh found herself sharing album space with Elaine Paige and Barbra Streisand.

Niall Mooney & Jonas Gladnikoff, the writers who brought you “Et Cetera” Ireland’s 2009 Eurovision entry, are back. This time they have been joined by Lina and Marten Eriksson two of Sweden’s most successful writing/production partnerships.

Jonas and Niall have been collaborating for a number years clocking up a large number of National Final appearances around Europe including Lithuania, Bulgaria and Albania. In 2009 Jonas came very close to representing Denmark coming second in their National Final, only to be narrowly beaten by Ireland’s own Ronan Keating. This was made all the more unusual when Jonas found himself co-writer on the Irish entry the same year!!

Niall says, “After last year it is obvious Ireland are going to need something really special to get a high position in the contest”. The answer presented itself when he heard Niamh Kavanagh singing in the National Concert Hall. “Her voice literally raised the roof “, exclaims Niall. “I got talking to Niamh a few months later and she said she’d consider it only if she had a great song. That was the hard bit. Jonas and I literally spent months writing but nothing was really good enough. Then Lina and Marten joined the collaboration and the whole thing clicked”.

Marten and Lina have had many hits across Europe. There biggest successes have been writing for Simon Cowell’s TV show Pop Idol in both Sweden and Germany. Lina co-wrote the Swedish Pop Idol winners song in 2007 “This moment” which went double platinum overnight. Amongst others they also recorded a song and video with Rybak last year and to top it off Marten produced “Et Cetera” for Ireland.

“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it “ Niall says. Big ballads do well every year and Ireland was the best at it once. I believe the time is right to be the best again. It takes a lot of courage for a singer to go back after winning 17 years ago. I am already so proud of Niamh for stepping up to the challenge and I think she will make the whole country proud if selected. After all this time……It’s for you!!”

Original here

It’s being reported that Niamh Kavanagh (Winner 1993) will again compete for Ireland in this years Eurosong on March 5th.

Update: RTE have confirmed all the entrants now

• Leanne Moore – Does Heaven Need Much More? – You’re a star winner 2007
• Monika Ivkic – Fashion Queen is a Bosnian singer who has already participated in the German Deutschland sucht den Superstar.
• Lee Bradshaw – River Of Silence - Irish Minor b celebrity who participated in Eurosong last year written by Ralph Siegel
• Mikey Graham – Baby Nothing Is Wrong - Boyzone fame
• Niamh Kavanagh – It’s For You – YAY!

Oh RTE we never really lost hope in you

Niamh won the competition in Ireland, for Ireland with this wonderful song. Go Niamh we are all the way behind you!!!

So a busy weekend ahead of us people. 5 countries choose their entries Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands and Cyprus.

Iceland looks comfortable to elect Hera Bjork as the new queen of schlager. Fan favourite Sukker’chok are ahead in the polls to win in Denmark followed closely by Bryan Rice. In Norway Didrik is odds on favourite to win by the bookies followed closely by A1 and Keep of Kasselin. I’ll write up an article on Cyprus later today and in The Netherlands who cares, oh the coach who pulled out earlier in the week has come back in again, so they again have 5 singers.

RTE is expected to announce the artists for Eurosong today, Linda Martin has been working tirelessly over the last few days apparently. Personally I think she just went shoe shopping and pulled the names out of a hat. But there are a lot of big names who have submitted their name this year. Can the curse of the turkey finally be broken? StylingOchConsulting was quite worried that no serious artists would take part anymore. I actually cannot wait now to see the final.

With just under 2 hours left to vote for the web entries from Spain TVE will announce on Monday who actually got through, unless they randomly disqualify anyone else, with more than 5 million votes cast so far the current standings to get through are:

1. Coral Segovia
2. John Cobra
3. Lorena
4. Daniel Diges
5. Venus
6. Samuel y Patricia
7. Anabel Conde
8. Fran Dieli
9. José Galisteo
10. Ainhoa Cantalapiedra

Belgium will announce the song that Tom Dice will be singing on March 7th.

In Romania amidst the filming of all the official song videos TVR have revealed their new mascot, I like it, I have to say.

Over 300 entries were received from ages 7 – 64. After several debates lasting for hours, Eurofairy was declared the winner of the contest. The artwork has been created by Carmen Dumitrescu Stefania, a 50 year old architect from Bucharest. The mascot will suffer small improvements and will become a member of the Romanian team for Eurovision 2010.

The Irish King of Eurovision Keith Mills (Johnny Logan is but a pretender to Keith’s throne!) has reported on Paddypower’s betting odds regarding Eurosong 2010. Before the five finalists have been announced, 1993 Eurovision winner Niamh is the early favourite to get the nod for Ireland at 5/2. British comedian Justin Lee Collins is second favourite in the betting at 4/1.

Eurosong 2010 Update on All Kinds of Everything

It seems Eurosong 2010 will be much more competitive than we had earlier feared, with many respected names including Niamh Kavanagh, Brendan Graham, Paul Harrington, Ronan Keating, Mikey Graham and even Ralf Siegel(!) rumoured to be involved with potential entries.

One of the issues I’m concerned about is the limited amount of time the five man jury has been allowed to whittle down 300 odd entries to 5 finalists. I really think the judges need to take their time when making this crucial decision.

I do hope Eurosong is a success this year as it would be great to get the Irish National Selection back on track and develop it over the coming years.

This is looking less and less like a joke.

When we first heard Justin Lee Collins was hoping to enter Eurovision for any country that would have him last year we laughed. We knew he was filming his efforts for British TV channel five and it seemed like a joke designed for a comedy programme which would mock the national selections for Eurovision across Europe.

Now it’s looking like Justin Lee Collins is deadly serious.

He has set his sights firmly on Eurosong here in Ireland and if this interview with ITN is anything to go by, he seems pretty assured that he has a place secured in the National Final.

Indeed, he has already appeared on Ireland’s most popular chat show, The Late Late Show, to raise his profile amongst Irish televoters and convince the public that his entry is not a joke.

With a song written by acclaimed song writers Ronan Keating and Paul Barry, this is looking less and less like a parody and more and more like the early front runner to represent Ireland in Oslo.

We are not amused.

Although he does betray a good taste in Eurovision chansons, listing 1993′s French entry Mama Corsica as his all time favourite entry.

Una Healy is one fourth of British/Irish girl-band The Saturdays who have scored chart success with albums Chasing Lights and World Shaker in recent years.

Una was a backing singer for Brian Kennedy in Athens in 2006 when Ireland scored their best result for years with an 11th place for the ballad Every Song Is A Cry For Love.

Irish newspaper The Evening Herald is today reporting that Una might be interested in a return to the Eurovision stage in the future, representing her home country in her own right.

“It wouldn’t put me off doing the Eurovision. Why not? If the right opportunity came along then who knows?I don’t know how the girls would feel about me heading off without them though,” she laughed.

Una won’t be taking part in Eurosong 2010 however as she and the girls are embarking on a European and Asian tour.

Given the success the pop band Industry have achieved in Ireland and in Europe last year, many were predicting that they would be strong candidates to enter Eurosong with a view to representing Ireland in Oslo in May.

Having spoken with their management, I can reveal that Industry will not be taking part in Eurosong or any other National Selection this year due to heavy touring and recording commitments.

Here at ESCIreland we live in hope that Donal, Lee, Morgan and Michelle might reconsider in 2012. We think their modern Swedish inspired brand of pop would be a perfect way for Ireland to return to glory on the Eurovision stage!

While there might be fabulous national song contests happening across Europe from Malta to Iceland and Finland RTÉ is sticking with the tried and tested if not very successful Eurosong format highlighted by Frank today.

One of the artists submitting potential entries to the Irish state broadcaster is Lamph. Their sound is varied and certainly unlike anything we’ve sent to Eurovision before. They have made some of the songs they intend to submit to Eurosong available on YouTube.

It might be a bit premature to start planning Dublin 2011 just yet!