Romania

__//Artist Biography//__: Elena Gheorghe is Romania's selected representative in Eurovision 2009. [|Elena] is half Romanian and half Macedonian. Her father is a priest and her mother is a folk singer. She has stated that the most important thing in the world to her is her family. Aside from her mother and father, Elena's family consists of her sister Ana who is a journalist, and her brother Costin, who plays football. Elena's first performance was when she was 3 years old with the song //Sus în Deal în Poie// which was sung with her mother, Marioara George Man. In the fifth grade she joined the Children´s National Palace which was where she took singing lessons. Over the years Elena Gheorghe has won many awards individually and as part of the band Mandinga which focused on Latin music.

In 2005 Elena as a member of Mandinga participated in Romania's National Eurovision Selection with the song "My Sun" and took fourth place. The song "My Sun" went on to win the Golden Disc. As Elena Gheorghe's talent matured, she opened a school of dance called Passitos and left Mandinga to pursue an independent career with the help of Laurentiu Duţă. Her first solo album //Your Voice,// was released in June 2006 and in March 2007 she won Radio România Actualitaţi as best performing act. Later that year, Elena won the award for Best Song of 2007 with //the single Your Brown Eyes.//

Currently Elena is promoting her song and may also appear on Oprah. A representative of TVR Eurovision press [|stated] (through Google translation), "I was contacted Tuesday night by the production team of the show stars the famous American Oprah, who requested some details about the biography and video Elena Gheorghe, to present in a special issue dedicated to Eurovision phenomenon"

//__Song Information__//: The [|offical music video] [|What is the story of song, The Balkan Girls?] //The song "The Balkan Girls" is composed by// Laurenţiu Duţă, Ovidiu Bistriceanu, Daris Mangal and the lyrics are written by Laurenţiu Duţă, Alexandru Pelin. This song is a party anthem for all Balkan girls with such lyrics as "The Balkan girls they like to party like nobody, like nobody," Here is a direct link to all of the lyrics to this song [|Balkan Girls Lyrics]. During an [|Interview], Elena talks about her song and how Balkan girls are "full of life and very positive." This song is sung in English although Elena gives most of her interviews in her native language of Romanian. One of the most important parts of this song is the choreography that goes along with the performance. After searching this song I learned that it can be purchased as a [|ringtone]. Making a song into a ringtone usually signifies the popularity of the song and how many different cultures accept it as good music.

This song has many mixed reviews from people all over the internet. On the website thouroughlygood.wordpress.com, I found a blog talking about this song and Elena herself, [|blog critique]. Critics on this blog range from saying that the song is growing on them more and more, to the song should not have made it to the semi finals. Other critics seem to focus on the physical attraction of Elena and her back up dancers rather than the song itself. The rehearsals that Elena has given so far are said to be close to the choreography that will be used in her final performance made in the Eurovision competition. In another [|interview], Elena talks about how the performance will try and hypnotize the audience with choreography and costume. On the other hand, some reviews say that the choreography is "over the top", "distracting" and "too much jumping around", which may affect the final judging on this song. Looking through the Eurovision website, Elena does not seem to be one of the favorites of this contest, but anything can happen with the support of Romania and other Balkan countries. Although some critics outside Romania criticize //The Balkan Girls//, it is currently the most listened to song on the Nielsen Music Control Chart within Romania. With mixed reviews of this song and the performance itself, we will have to wait and see how //The Balkan Girls// plays out in this competitive contest. Elena was the 14th performance in the second semi-final of the 2009 Eurovision contest and will be the 22nd performance in the finals.

The music of the song is that of an uptempo, fast paced, dance song. Starting out with what seem to be bongo drums,the song quickly incorporates more drums and saxophones setting its tempo. The song sounds like it has an influence of Latin culture mixed with that sound of contemporary dance music. I can definitely image this song being played in any club, inside or outside of Europe. Background lyrics seem to loop with the lead vocals which intensifies the lyrics of the song. Being sung in English, which is not Elena's first language, the listener can hear that some of the words and phrases are pronounced with an accent and it is sometimes hard to clarify exactly what is being sung. Overall I enjoyed listening to this song because of the upbeat tempo and fun, party theme.

When Elena was asked about the story behind the song, she [|replied], //"The Balkan Girls// was born from my desire to participate at Eurovision. Shortly before entering the contest, I contacted my music producer, Laurentiu Duta, and I asked him to compose a special song for this competition. After a week, he called me and he sung me the chorus. I was very confident that this song will have a great chance of success. In the Romanian National Final, it was a great success, and now I pray the same will happen in Moscow."

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 //__Narrative of Entry__//: Elena has made it into the finals of Eurovision’s 2009 song competition for the first time representing her home land Romania. As previously stated in the biography she has been singing since she was three years old taking lessons in elementary school as well as joining “Children’s National Palace” in fifth grade. Elena sang a Whitney Houston song to guaranty the winning of the gold trophy Little Bear, she was a force to be reckoned with. She continued to participate in festivals until she joined the band called Mandinga. This was a great career move for her, singing in a successful band that has a very Latino salsa vibe to it. As mentioned previously, in 2005 Elena and the Mandinga’s showed their talent by placing 4th in the 2005 National Eurovision competition. In 2004 Elena was [|interviewed] as a member of Mandinga and mentioned her desire to travel along with a wish to become a journalist or reporter. Paparizou has admitted that Greek music had been something of an acquired taste for her, saying that the name 'Antique' was probably a reflection of her childhood impression of it being something rather distant and old-fashioned; something that she only really associated with her summer holidays in Greece.[1] Following her success with Antique, Elena decided to pursue a solo career. Paparizou ended up spending more and more time in Greece, and after a long selection process of the Greek National Broadcaster ERT, she was approached to represent the country for a second time in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005. She performed My Number One, Let's Get Wild, and OK on the Greek national final, with My Number One winning the televote. There was also a song called The Light in Our Soul, but it was later disqualified due to it being released prior to the contest, thus breaking the rules. The song went onto win the final contest (with backing vocals provided by Cypriot former Eurovision-participant Alex Panayi), and brought the contest to Greece for 2006 for the first time in the contest's history.(wikipedia) She soon released her first album called Your Voice in June 2006, opening up the pathway that she is on in this competition by winning Best Performing Act and Best Song in 2006 and the Romanian Top Hit Music Award Best Song in 2007.

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 * Youtube clip of Mandinga performing in the 2005 National competition**

//__Romania's EUROVISION history__//: Romania began participating in Eurovision in 1994, when their artist Dan Bittman came in at number twenty one, but after that year took a four year break. They have been in the contest a total of ten times since 1994. The best Romania did in the contest was in 2005 when Luminita Anghel and Sistem sang "Let Me Try," which earned them third place in the contest. However, Romania is notorious for not getting very far in Eurovision; in 1998 the country received their worst score for Malina Olinescu's song, "Eu Cred," which was placed at number twenty two, receiving a total of six points overall. In Eurovision, there is a tendency for countries to form alliances with one another and create voting blocks. This is where certain countries vote for one another to win, since the voting rules prohibit the countries from voting for themselves. One of the more prominent [|voting blocks] is called the Balkan Block, which includes quite a few different countries, including Romania, Croatia, Macedonia, Greece, Cyprus, Serbia, Turkey, Bosnia, Slovenia and Greece. The Balkan Block is the largest voting block in the competition because it includes a total of eleven countries. So far in the competition, Elena Gheorghe "ranks twelfth in people's preferences at the first semifinal," says [|financiarul.ro].