Introduction

Slovenia is celebrating its 20th anniversary in the Eurovision Song Contest this year! This means 20 years of wonderful Slovenian music and great memories of singers and songs. Due to this special occasion the Slovenian broadcaster RTVSLO has organized another national final called EMA with lots of songs from the past, also Maja Keuc – representative of 2011 - presented her new song “Close To You”. With the judgement of popular jurors and the TV spectators Tinkara Kovac could win the ticket for Copenhagen.

Tinkara Kovač was born in Koper in 1978. She is a Slovenian pop and rock singer and a flutist. Tinkara has studied classical flute at the conservatory in Trieste, Italy. In 1997 she has released her first album and her music career took off, she received several awards and recorded more albums, gave more than 50 concerts and had TV appearances, even in Germany. Tinkara toured through various countries like Italy, Croatia, Austria and Germany. Her most outstanding performance Tinkara gave in front of the the Vatican with 185.000 spectators as solo flutist with the Symphony Orchestra of the Vatican. This year it’s not the first Eurovision experience for Tinkara as she already entered the Slovenian EMA three times: 1997 with “Veter z juga” (10th), 1999 with “Zakaj” (2nd) and 2001 with “Sonce v očeh” (4th).

Her song “Spet (Round and Round)” is Tinkara’s fourth attempt to represent Slovenia in the ESC. The bilingual song has been written by Kovač, Raay, Tina Piš and Hannah Mancini, who sang last year for Slovenia. Of course Tinkara will take her flute on stage to remain to her style. Maybe it’s her strongest song among her attempts to enter the ESC. But will this kind of song qualify for the Grand Final? The arrangement and the harmony of the song appear a bid old school and is probably not catchy enough for a top position.

History

Participations: 20

Debut: 1993

Biggest success: 2x 7th place 1995 “Prisluhni Mi” by Darja Svaiger, 2001 “Energy” by Nusa Derenda, 1x 10th place 

It’s the 20th anniversary in the Eurovision Song Contest for Slovenia this year. As one of the first independent Balkan countries Slovenia has joined the Eurovision Song Contest in 1993 with the debut entry “Tih Dezeven Dan” by 1X Band and came 9th. As one of the former ex-Yugoslav countries, Slovenia can look back to an additional 27-years-old history of Yugoslavian entries, where one victory with “Rock me” by Riva in 1989 could be celebrated. The Slovenes have participated since then with great enthusiasm and put every effort in well chosen songs of high quality with an international standard.

Slovenia is the only country from the ex-Yugoslav countries which does not benefit from the “Balkan Block Voting” like Croatia, Serbia, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Since the semi finals have been introduced, Slovenia could only qualify two times out of ten. The most successful songs from Slovenia were: “Prisluhni mi” by Darja Svaiger in 1995 (7th), “Energy” in 2001 (7th) and “Vanillja” by Maja Keuc in 2011 (13th).