Introduction

• Participant(s): Sandhja
• Song: Sing It Away
• Writer(s) / Composer(s): Sandhja Kuivalainen, Petri Matara, Milos Rosas & Markus Savijoki & Heikki Korhonen
• Broadcaster: YLE
• Social media: 
• Team review: 

The Finnish broadcaster YLE has made a national selection with several semi-finals and a big final. The format is called “UMK - Uuden Musikkin Kilpailu” which determines the Finnish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. But is also should motivate song writers and singers to participate in a great TV show with Finnish music. The surprise winner this year was Sandhja with “Sing It Away”, as there were other big favourites such as Saara Aalto and Mikael Saari. There were a lot of extraordinary juries like asphalt constructors, YouTubers, Finland Swedes, LGTB, children, etc., which had too much weighting at the end so that the televoting had less impact.

Sandhja Kuivalainen was born in Helsinki in 1991. She has Indian-Guyanese roots and is a professional nurse. She also has a great passion for music and started composing and singing without attending a music school. In 2013 she released her first album and the singles “Hold Me” and “Gold” . The songs have reached the Finnish Top 20. On her travels to Guyana and Jamaica she could gain a lot of inspiration for her second album. Sandjah herself composed “Sing It Away” together with Milos Rosas, Heikki Korhonen, Petri Matara and Markus Savijoki.

The song “Sing It Away” is a funky pop song with a groovy rhythm and a catchy melody. In the song Sandjah would like to motivate people to forget their worries and surrender their feelings. In Finland this song has only reached the third place by the public voting, but as previously mentioned the weighting of the juries has put it on number one. Let’s see how the international juries and televoters think about the Finnish entry this year.

History

• Debut: 1961
• Participations: 50
• Victories: 1
• Finals: 44
• Top 10: 12
• Chance for Top 10: 24 %

Finland is celebrating its 50th anniversary in the Eurovision Song Contest this year! Congratulations! Over the years Finland’s reputation in regards of success has suffered. Even if Finland has send songs of outrageous quality and many great evergreens, but the points did not flow as for other countries. Three times Finland received not even a single point. Maybe this was due to the language issue or it has just been the wrong choice of the Finnish entries for Eurovision.

After all the years of waiting the hard rock band Lordi came with “Hard Rock Hallelujah” in 2006 and Finland had its first fulminate and very well deserved victory in history. The entire country was in Lordi-fever and a long-cherished wish came true.
At least Finland is often passing the Semi Finals lately, seven times out of twelve Finland has made it into the Grand Final with the utmost different songs from hard rock over ballad to pop.