Visit-Montenegro.com: Semi-finals without Marija Sestic
15th Music Festival “Pjesma Mediterana” starts tonight in Budva: Audiences will have the opportunity to listen to 18 new songs. Mario Prizmic and harmony-singing group “Portun” will open the first semi-final night. Nesad Selman will perform second, and within the first contest night we will have a chance to enjoy the songs of Sara Kobold, Andrej Ilic, Edo Sellier, band “Feminem” and Joce Panov. The only Montenegrin participant in the reality show “Operation Triumph” Nina Petkovic will compete in this year’s Mediterranean Song Contest.
Podgorica – 15th Music Festival “Pjesma Mediterana” (Song of the Mediterranean) is starting tonight and audiences will have the opportunity to listen to 18 new songs. Mario Prizmic and harmony-singing group “Portun” will open the first semi-final night. Nesad Selman will perform second, and within the first contest night we will have a chance to enjoy the songs of Sara Kobold, Andrej Ilic, Edo Sellier, band “Feminem” and Joce Panov. The only Montenegrin participant in the reality show “Operation Triumph” Nina Petkovic will compete in this year’s festival with the song “S druge strane sna” (From the other side of dream).
After her performance, Sarah Zanella Claudia Faniello and last year’s winner Ivan Canovic will hit the stage. Among this year’s contestants are: Maja Nikolic, Lambe Alabakovski, Argyris Nastopoulos, Goca Trzan, Tamara Todevska, as well as MarkoS, who was awarded last year for the best interpretation. “Viva Romana” will close the contest part of the festival.
Originally, 19 performers should have taken part in the first semi-final night, but Marija Sestic, a Bosnian representative on Eurosong 2007, withdrew from the competition. She should have performed the song “Nikad vise” (Never again), written and composed by Aleksandra Radovic, while Niksa Bratos was in charge of the song arrangement. We were informed that the singer cancelled her performance on this year’s Mediterranean Song Contest because of illness. The organizers were caught unprepared by this news.
“Marija cancelled the performance few days before the festival, so we simply couldn’t react timely. If she had told us that she wouldn’t participate in Mediterranean Song Contest when the selection committee announced participants, we would have most probably had 19 songs as it was originally planned. Now, we have neither backup composition nor the backup participant,” PR of the festival, Aleksandar Rados explained.
After the contestant part, the concert dedicated to the band “Indexi” will be organized. Namely, the members of this famous band from Sarajevo will play the instruments while the guest vocalists will be ex-YU singers Mladen Vojicic Tifa, Aki Rahimovski, Dado Topic, Kaliopi, Masimo Savic and Arsen Dedic.
The festival will begin at 9 p.m. and it will be broadcast live by the National Television RTCG.
By M.M.