Introduction

• Participant(s): Laura Rizzotto
• Song: "Funny Girl" 
• Writer(s): Laura Rizzotto
• Composer(s): Laura Rizzotto
• Broadcaster: LTV
  
• Social media:       
• Team review: 

The Latvian representative is Laura Rizzotto. She has won the Latvian national final called “Supernova”. With this performer Latvia is having a real world citizen. As Laura was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1994. Her father is Latvian and her mother is Brazilian with Portuguese decent, she grew up in Rio and USA and lives in New York. That seems to be very good pre conditions for participating at the international event in Lisbon.

Laura has been studying music at the Berklee College of music in Boston, she also graduated at the California Institute of Arts in Los Angeles and received master class at the Columbia University New York in 2017. Laura has been discovered, when she performed in a bar at the Copacabana. And soon she released her first album “Made in Rio”. Beside of all her studies she has been teaching Jennifer Lopez in Portuguese, Laura’s native language and she released two albums, 1 EP and over 100 songs. Here are some examples: “Friend In Me” and “Reason To Stay”.

The song “Funny Girl” is about a woman, who does not feel respected by the guy he is in love with. The music genre is exactly what Laura has been doing all the previous years. In the song there are jazz elements and cool moments which make the song sound quite mature. Just to mention that Laura is only 23 years old, she might have one of the most sophisticated songs this year.

History

• Debut: 2000
• Participations: 19
• Victories: 1
• Finals: 10
• Top 10: 4
• Chances for Top 10: 24%
• Chances for Final: 46%

In the short history of Latvia in the Eurovision Song Contest, the biggest success came in the third year after the debut. In 2002 Marie N. could win with her sexy dance performance „I wanna“, this was also a little surprise as nobody expected this entry to win. The following ESC 2003 took place in the wonderful capital of Latvia: Riga. Latvia describes itself as “the land that sings” which origins in the long singing tradition which takes place in singing festivals all over the country. This can also be said from the neighbour country Estonia.

From 2009 until 2014 Latvia could not reach the Grand final anymore, even if the Latvian songs seem to be contemporary, but a lovely young girl named Aminata could impress everybody with her self-composed song “Love Injected” and brought back a lot of Eurovision enthusiasm to Latvia. She made a wonderful 6th place. The year after Aminata acted as a composer and her entry “Heartbeat” which was sung by Justs came 15th in the Stockholm. Last year’s entry “Line” by Triana Park did not make it into the Grand Final. The chances to reach a Top10 position is now at 21% for Latvia and the chance to reach the Grand Final is about 40%.

Biggest successes

1x 1st place

• Marie N | I Wanna (2002)

1x 3rd place

• BrainStorm | My Star (2000)

Video Nostalgia

• “Hello From Mars” | F.L.Y., Rank 24, Riga 2003
• “Questa Notte” | Bonaparte.lv, Rank 16 (Final), Helsinki 2007
• “What For?” | Aisha, Rank 17 (Semi Final), Baku 2012