English version
Let's talk about Eurovision first. Eurovision - the main competition in your life? Or are there still contests that have given you more than Eurovision?
- Eurovision was my first ever music contest. And I have to say it did not feel like a contest. It’s not like you really compete “against” anyone. You only try to bring your best version to the stage.
Clear. And who was your favorite for Eurovision 2018?
- Elina Nechayeva from Estonia is a fantastic singer, I had goosebumps every time she sang. Her dress was amazing too. I guess I would have voted for her, if I wouldn’t have participated .
We are from Russia. And we want to note that in Russia, almost every person believes that Eurovision is a political contest. Do you think there is at least some political subtext in the competition? Or is Eurovision a completely musical competition?
- To answer that, I would first have to know your definition of “political contest”. If your question is “does it happen that some juries give high or top points to countries they are close to?” The answer is clearly yes. There are countries who almost always team up and give each other high points. But on the other hand that same tainting of votes happens in the televote. People also vote based on sympathies for their neighboring country. Maybe they even have relatives in that country causing them to root for the contestant. And don’t forget , most of them aren’t specialists in music production or performance in the first place. So sympathy is a large factor to begin with. i would say this influences the score sheet to a greater extent than the few “teams” in the jury ranking do. What has come to my ears though are the rumours of “bought televotes”. Apparently you can greatly affect the televotes in small countries with few voters, just by buying a couple of thousand votes. If there is any truth to that, that is a much greater threat to the integrity of this beautiful contest, than a few sympathy votes and has nothing to do with politics but is just foul play , nothing more. Lets hope its a hoax! I am glad that Austria has no alliances to speak of , nobody particularly loves or hates us. So my result was 100% legit, for what it's worth!
I myself do not understand why Russia has such an attitude towards this competition. Maybe because Russia won the Eurovision Song Contest just once. Let's change the Eurovision theme to Austria. Title 3 things for which you love Austria.
- Austria is
1. A very safe place, one of the safest on the planet. There is a relatively high level of comfort afforded to every citizen.
2. A country with a lot of history. While it is not the oldest country in Europe, somehow it was quietly at the center of most of the important developments over the centuries. You can feel that this place remembers a lot of things.
3. A very modest , mentality wise. After all the grandeur of being a vast empire until the turn of the century and after indirectly creatingone the most murderous dictators in living memory, Austria as a country seemingly stepped back and became about stability and safety, staying out of the never ending struggle for power and domination, many countries are still deeply involved in. Austria is a great place to grow as a person, just because it is so modest. Austria is never going to inflate your ego, it isn’t going to boost your ambitions. Many call that boring, but at least everything you build will be earned.
Clear. What do you think what musical genre is the most popular in the world? Or, nevertheless, classical music remains in the first place.
- Hmm i would say, most music styles are melting together. Pop means more different things than it ever has. It has also economic reasons that the so called“alternative” music scenes are shrinking. Everybody uses more or less the same marketing tools,the same platforms but since it takes more public response , more downloads and streams to make the same amount of money one would make in the 90s , it's much harder being an alternative artist and ignoring contemporary tendencies the way they used to do in the past. So the distinction is so small that it all kind of melts together into one diverse pool of ever changing content. Maybe this is the beginning of the end of the word genre as we know it?
Yeah. Perhaps this will soon be a very big problem.Talk about the languages in the songs. Is the best language for the song English? What language do you prefer to sing in?
- Always english:) words should never be in the way of music, and english doesn’t impose too many impractical or ungraceful sounds on your melodies!
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Interviewer: Sofia Rumyantseva