Roxen to sing for Romania in Rotterdam

By Kevin Sherwin

20-year-old Roxen will represent Romania at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest 2020 in The Netherlands this May. She became the country’s representative via a songwriting camp that public broadcaster TVR organised in collaboration with the music label Global Records.

After failing to qualify to the Grand Final for the last 2 contests, TVR realised that “failure was not an option” in 2020. Unlike previous editions, this year, Romanian public broadcaster TVR  changed the selection mechanism and entered into partnership with major Romanian music label Global Records. At the end of January, not far from Bucharest, a special ESC songwriting camp was organised, & during this camp some of the best Romanian composers and artists wrote songs for the chosen artist.

Music producers, composers, lyricists, musicologists, tv-radio music show producers, music directors and other specialists in the music field were reunited in the Camp to concentrate first in finding the most representative voice, & after narrowing it down to 3 artists Roxen was chosen. Thereafter  several songs were created and out of which the best 5 will enter the National Final.

20 year old Roxen, by her real name Larisa Roxana Giurgiu, who is from Cluj started singing at the age of 7 and won several musical competitions throughout the years. Right now, Roxen is the 3rd most-played artist on Romanian radio and has 2 songs in the radio charts: You “Don’t Love Me” (which has 8 million views on YouTube) and “Ce-ti Canta Dragostea” (9 million views).

On 1 March, Roxen will perform 5 songs in Romania’s National Final on TV. During the show the Romanian public will be able to vote for their favourite song. Both a Jury and the public will pick their favourite song, in which both will have an equal 50% share in the final outcome. In case of a tie, the public vote will prevail.

It was Duncan Laurence with his song “Arcade” that means the 65th Eurovision Song Contest will take place this year in The Netherlands  under the slogan of “Open Up”.

The Grand Final of the  Eurovision Song Contest 2020 will take place at the Ahoy Arena Rotterdam on Saturday 16th of May.