Macedonia (officially under the provisional appellation "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", abbreviated "FYR Macedonia") participated in the
Eurovision Song Contest 2013
The Eurovision Song Contest 2013 was the 58th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Malmö, Sweden, following the country's victory at the with the song "Euphoria" by Loreen. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EB ...
with the song "Pred da se razdeni" written by
Darko Dimitrov
Darko Dimitrov ( mk, Дарко Димитров ; born January 21, 1973) is a Macedonian songwriter, record producer, arranger and record executive. Highly acclaimed for revitalising the Yugoslav mainstream pop music scene, which also influence ...
, Lazar Cvetkoski, Simeon Atanasov and Magdalena Cvetkoska. The song was performed by
Esma and
Lozano, which were internally selected by the Macedonian broadcaster
Macedonian Radio Television
Macedonian Radio Television (MRT; mk, Македонска радио-телевизија (МРТ), Makedonska radio-televizija (MRT)), officially National Radio-Television ( mk, Национална Радиотелевизија, Nacionalna ...
(MRT) to compete for Macedonia at the 2013 contest in
Malmö
Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...
, Sweden. Esma and Lozano's appointment as the Macedonian representatives were announced on 29 December 2012, while their song, "Imperija", was presented to the public in a television special on 27 February 2013. "Imperija" was later withdrawn due to negative reactions from the public and replaced with the song "Pred da se razdeni", which was presented to the public on 15 March 2013.
Macedonia was drawn to compete in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 16 May 2013. Performing during the show in position 3, "Pred da se razdeni" was not announced among the top 10 entries of the second semi-final and therefore did not qualify to compete in the final. It was later revealed that Macedonia placed sixteenth out of the 17 participating countries in the semi-final with 28 points.
Background
Prior to the 2013 contest, Macedonia had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest twelve times since its first entry in . The nation's best result in the contest to this point was twelfth, which it achieved in
2006
File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...
with the song "Ninanajna" performed by
Elena Risteska
Elena Risteska ( mk, Елена Ристеска, ; born 27 April 1986), sometimes known as simply Elena, is a Macedonian singer. She represented Macedonia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 in Athens with the song "Ninanajna", and finished in 1 ...
. Following the
introduction of semi-finals for the , Macedonia had featured in only five finals.
The Macedonian national broadcaster,
Macedonian Radio Television
Macedonian Radio Television (MRT; mk, Македонска радио-телевизија (МРТ), Makedonska radio-televizija (MRT)), officially National Radio-Television ( mk, Национална Радиотелевизија, Nacionalna ...
(MRT), broadcasts the event within Macedonia and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. Macedonia had previously selected their entry for the Eurovision Song Contest through both national finals and internal selections. MRT confirmed their intentions to participate at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest on 27 November 2012. Between 2008 and 2011, Macedonia selected their entries using the national final ''
Skopje Fest
Skopje Fest ( mk, Скопје фест) or Festival na zabavni melodii Skopje (Фестивал на забавни мелодии Скопје) is one of the main musical events in North Macedonia.
SkopjeFest began in 1968 in the Universal Hall ...
''. During this period, the nation failed to qualify to the final on every occasion. The broadcaster internally selected Macedonia's entry in 2012, resulting in a qualification to the final. For 2013, the broadcaster again opted to internally select the Macedonian entry.
Before Eurovision
Internal selection
On 29 December 2012, MRT announced that they had internally selected
Esma Redžepova
Esma Redžepova-Teodosievska ( mk, Есма Реџепова-Теодосиевска, ; 8 August 1943 – 11 December 2016) was a Macedonian Romani vocalist, songwriter and humanitarian. Because of her prolific repertoire, which included hund ...
and
Vlatko Lozanoski
Vlatko Lozanoski - Lozano ( mk, Влатко Лозаноски - Лозано; born 27 June 1985) is a Macedonian singer. Together with Esma Redžepova, he represented Macedonia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 in Malmö, Sweden.
Career
H ...
to represent Macedonia in Malmö. Both singers previously attempted to represent Macedonia at the Eurovision Song Contest by competing in the country's national final selections on several occasions. Esma competed in
2006
File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...
with the song "Ljubov e..." which she performed in a duet with
Adrijan Gaxha and placed second, while Lozano competed in
2009
File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...
with the song "Blisku do mene" and in
2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
with the song "Letam kon tebe", both of them which placed fourth.
On 19 February 2013, it was announced that Esma and Lozano would perform the song "Imperija" at the Eurovision Song Contest 2013. "Imperija" was presented to the public in a special show hosted by Dimitar Atanasovski, which took place on 27 February 2013 and was broadcast on
MRT 1
MRT 1 (МРТ 1) is a television station in North Macedonia owned and operated by Macedonian Radio-Television.
Current line-up News shows
*'' Dnevnik MRT'' - main news at 10:00, 17:00, 19:30, and 23:00
*''MRT Vesti'' - news, runs at 13:00, and ...
and
MRT Sat
MRT Sat (MKTV Sat) is the name of Macedonian Radio-Television's satellite service to telecast to the Macedonian diaspora across the world. Its programming is taken from MRT 1. MRT Sat is available in Australia and New Zealand. It is currently broa ...
. In addition to presenting Esma and Lozano's 2013 Eurovision entry, the show featured performances of songs from their repertoire and a guest performance by
2012 Macedonian Eurovision representative Kaliopi
Kaliopi Bukle ( mk, Калиопи Букле, ; born 28 December 1966), known professionally as Kaliopi, is a Macedonian singer-songwriter. In her career, Kaliopi has progressed from singing lead vocal with her eponymous band in 1980s Yugoslavi ...
. "Imperija" was composed by Simeon Atanasov with lyrics written by Borče Nečovski, and was selected from several proposals by well-known composers invited by MRT. An
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
version was also recorded as "If I Could Change the World".
Song withdrawal and replacement
On 8 March 2013, several Macedonian media outlets reported that "Imperija" would be withdrawn from the Eurovision Song Contest and replaced with a new song written by
Darko Dimitrov
Darko Dimitrov ( mk, Дарко Димитров ; born January 21, 1973) is a Macedonian songwriter, record producer, arranger and record executive. Highly acclaimed for revitalising the Yugoslav mainstream pop music scene, which also influence ...
, Lazar Cvetkovski and Simeon Atanasov due to negative reactions from the public, particularly with the music video which was claimed to be a glorification of the government-backed
Skopje 2014
Skopje 2014 ( mk, Скопје 2014) was a project financed by the Macedonian government of the then-ruling nationalist party VMRO-DPMNE, with the official purpose of giving the capital Skopje a more classical appeal. The project, officially anno ...
construction project.
The new song, "Pred da se razdeni", was presented to the public on 15 March 2013 during the MRT evening news programme ''Dnevnik''. "Pred da se razdeni" was composed by Darko Dimitrov, Lazar Cvetkovski and Simeon Atanasov with lyrics written by Magdalena Cvetkoska.
At Eurovision
According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "
Big Five" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progress to the final. The
European Broadcasting Union
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; french: Union européenne de radio-télévision, links=no, UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations whose countries are within the European Broadcasting Area or who ar ...
(EBU) split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot. On 17 January 2013, a special allocation draw was held which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals, as well as which half of the show they would perform in. Macedonia was placed into the second semi-final, to be held on 16 May 2013, and was scheduled to perform in the first half of the show.
Once all the competing songs for the 2013 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Macedonia was set to perform in position 3, following the entry from
San Marino
San Marino (, ), officially the Republic of San Marino ( it, Repubblica di San Marino; ), also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino ( it, Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino, links=no), is the fifth-smallest country in the world an ...
and before the entry from
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...
.
The two semi-finals and final were broadcast in Macedonia on
MRT 1
MRT 1 (МРТ 1) is a television station in North Macedonia owned and operated by Macedonian Radio-Television.
Current line-up News shows
*'' Dnevnik MRT'' - main news at 10:00, 17:00, 19:30, and 23:00
*''MRT Vesti'' - news, runs at 13:00, and ...
and
MRT Sat
MRT Sat (MKTV Sat) is the name of Macedonian Radio-Television's satellite service to telecast to the Macedonian diaspora across the world. Its programming is taken from MRT 1. MRT Sat is available in Australia and New Zealand. It is currently broa ...
with commentary by Karolina Petkovska.
The Macedonian spokesperson, who announced the Macedonian votes during the final, was Dimitar Atanasovski.
Semi-final
![ESC2013 - Macedonia 06](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/ESC2013_-_Macedonia_06.jpg)
Esma and Lozano took part in technical rehearsals on 8 and 11 May, followed by dress rehearsals on 15 and 16 May. This included the jury show on 15 May where the professional juries of each country watched and voted on the competing entries.
The Macedonian performance featured Esma and Lozano performing on stage together with two backing vocalists. Esma wore a red dress with
Swarovski
Swarovski (, ) is an Austrian producer of glass based in Wattens, Austria, and has existed as a family-owned business since its founding in 1895 by Daniel Swarovski.
The company is split into three major industry areas: the Swarovski Crystal ...
applications and a traditional Roma headscarf, designed by Elena Luka, while Lozano wore a black suit designed by Viktoria Arsovska and Andrej Gjorgiovski. The stage colours were predominately green, yellow and purple. After contemplating to add English language lyrics to the song and change the song title to "If I Could Change the World", the Macedonian delegation ultimately decided that the song would be performed in Macedonian.
The two backing vocalists that joined Esma and Lozano on stage were Eleonora Mustafovska and Nina Janeva.
At the end of the show, Macedonia was not announced among the top 10 entries in the second semi-final and therefore failed to qualify to compete in the final.
It was later revealed that Macedonia placed sixteenth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 28 points.
Voting
Voting during the three shows consisted of 50 percent public televoting and 50 percent from a jury deliberation. The jury consisted of five music industry professionals who were citizens of the country they represent. This jury was asked to judge each contestant based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act. In addition, no member of a national jury could be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently.
Following the release of the full split voting by the EBU after the conclusion of the competition, it was revealed that Macedonia had placed sixteenth it the public televote and fourteenth with the jury vote in the second semi-final. In the public vote, Macedonia received an average rank of 12.22, while with the jury vote, Macedonia received an average rank of 9.75.
Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Macedonia and awarded by Macedonia in the second semi-final and grand final of the contest. The nation awarded its 12 points to Malta in the semi-final and to Denmark in the final of the contest.
Points awarded to Macedonia
Points awarded by Macedonia
References
{{Eurovision Song Contest 2013
2013
File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...
Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013
Eurovision
The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...