Macedonia (officially under the provisional appellation "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", abbreviated "FYR Macedonia") participated in the

Eurovision Song Contest 2004 The Eurovision Song Contest 2004 was the 49th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Istanbul, Turkey, following the country's victory at the with the song "Everyway That I Can" by Sertab Erener. Organised by the European Broa ...

with the song "Life" written by

Jovan Jovanov Jovan Jovanov ( mk, Јован Јованов) is a Macedonian-Canadian music producer, record engineer and songwriter of pop, R&B, house, and hip-hop. Now based in Toronto, Ontario, Jovanov is working with Canadian artists such as Alx Veliz ...

and Ilija Nikolovski. The song was performed by

Toše Proeski Todor "Toše" Proeski ( mk, Тодор "Тоше" Проески, ; 25 January 1981 – 16 October 2007) was a Macedonian multi-genre singer and songwriter. Considered a top act of the local Macedonian and Balkan music scene, Proeski's music w ...

, who was 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 2004 contest in

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

, Turkey. MRT returned to the Eurovision Song Contest after a one-year absence following their relegation from

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

as one of the bottom five countries in the

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

contest. Toše Proeski's appointment as the Macedonian representative was announced on 7 June 2003, while MRT organised ''Skopje Fest 2004'' in order to select his song. Eight songs competed in the competition on 14 February 2004 where "Angel si ti" was selected following the combination of votes from an eleven-member jury panel, Proeski himself and a public televote. The song was later translated from Macedonian to

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 ...

for the Eurovision Song Contest and was titled "Life". Macedonia competed in the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 12 May 2004. Performing during the show in position 15, "Life" was announced among the top 10 entries of the semi-final and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 15 May. It was later revealed that Macedonia placed tenth out of the 22 participating countries in the semi-final with 71 points. In the final, Macedonia performed in position 15 and placed fourteenth out of the 24 participating countries, scoring 47 points.

Background

Prior to the 2004 contest, Macedonia had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest three times since its first entry in . The nation's best result in the contest to this point was fifteenth, which it achieved in

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

with the song "

100% te ljubam XXL represented Macedonia in the 2000 Eurovision Song Contest after winning the national final selection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2000 with the song "100% te ljubam". Before Eurovision Skopje Fest 2000 The national final, was held ...

" performed by XXL. The Macedonian national broadcaster,

(MRT), broadcasts the event within Macedonia and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. Macedonia had previously selected all of their entries for the Eurovision Song Contest by 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 ...

''. MRT confirmed their intentions to participate at the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest on 7 July 2003. For 2004, the broadcaster opted to internally select the Macedonian artist with the song selected through ''Skopje Fest''.

Before Eurovision

Artist selection

On 7 July 2003, MRT announced during a press conference at the Holiday Inn Hotel in

Skopje Skopje ( , , ; mk, Скопје ; sq, Shkup) is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre. The territory of Skopje has been inhabited since at least 4000 BC; r ...

that they had internally selected

to represent Macedonia in Istanbul. Proeski previously attempted to represent Macedonia at the Eurovision Song Contest by competing in the country's national final selections on several occasions: in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

with the song "Ostani do kraj" which he performed with the group Megatim Plus and placed eighth, and in

with the song "Solzi pravat zlaten prsten" which placed third. It was also announced that the ''Skopje Fest 2004'' song contest would be organised to select the song Toše Proeski would perform.

Skopje Fest 2004

A submission period was opened for interested composers to submit their songs until 15 October 2003. MRT received 60 submissions at the closing of the deadline and eight songs were selected by

and his manager Liliana Petrović together with a ten-member committee consisting of Mihail Rendžov (poet), Jana Andreevska (composer), Radica Mitić (MR 2), Svetlana Marković (sound designer), Ivan Mirčevski (MTV), Arben Shaqiri (singer), Danail Darkovski (composer and instrumentalist), John Ilija Apelgren (singer), Ariton Krliu (MR 2) and

Ilija Pejovski Ilija Pejovski (Macedonian: Илија Пејовски) (born 1947) is a Macedonian composer, arranger and pianist. One of the Macedonian composers who began to treat jazz professionally and evolve the genre of Macedonian Jazz,Den za nas''.

versions of the eight songs were also recorded along with six of the songs in Serbian which appeared on the Serbian version of the album '' Dan za nas''. ''Skopje Fest 2004'' took place on 14 January 2004 at the Universal Hall in

, hosted by Karolina Petkovska and Aneta Andonova and was broadcast on

MTV 1 MTV is a British pay television channel focusing on reality TV and music programming operated by Paramount Networks UK & Australia. The channel launched as part of MTV Networks Europe localisation strategy in 1997. MTV UK (previously MTV UK & ...

and MTV Sat. All eight competing songs were performed by Toše Proeski and "Angel si ti" was selected as the winning song by a combination of public televoting (1/3), votes from Proeski himself (1/3) and an eleven-member jury panel (1/3). The jury panel consisted of

Srgjan Kerim Srgjan Kerim ( mk, Срѓан Керим, ; tr, Sercan Kerim; born December 12, 1948) is a Macedonian diplomat, economist, former Foreign Minister and President of the 62nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly. His term of office began ...

( ''Media Print Makedonija''),

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 ...

(singer-songwriter), Aleksandar Džambazov (composer), Bubo Karov ( K-15), Ariton Krliu (MR 2), Dario (singer), Iskra Trpeva (singer), Aleksandar Masevski (composer and producer), Oliver Belopeta (artistic director), Sašo Čolakovski (journalist) and Ivan Mirčevski (MTV). The English versions of the eight songs were also presented to the public through 40-second samples after each song was performed. In addition to the performances of the competing songs, the competition featured a guest performance by Synthesis.

At Eurovision

It was announced that the competition's format would be expanded to include a semi-final in 2004. According to the rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country, the " Big Four" (France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom), and the ten highest placed finishers in the

contest are required to qualify from the semi-final on 12 May 2004 in order to compete for the final on 15 May 2004; the top ten countries from the semi-final progress to the final. On 23 March 2004, a special allocation draw was held which determined the running order for the semi-final and Macedonia was set to perform in position 15, following the entry from

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...

and before the entry from

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

. Toše Proeski performed the

version of "Angel si ti" at the contest, titled "Life" (formerly "Life Is..."). Among the backing performers that joined Proeski on stage for the Macedonian performance was

Tamara Todevska Tamara Todevska ( mk, Тамара Тодевска, pronounced , born 1 June 1985), also known mononymously as Tamara, is a Macedonian pop singer. Tamara began her music career in 2003 following the release of her debut studio album '' Sino' ...

who would go on to represent

Macedonia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 Macedonia selected its entry to the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 through a national final at the Skopje Fest 2008 on 23 February 2008. Before Eurovision Skopje Fest 2008 ''Skopje Fest 2008'' was a song contest organized by MKRTV that served ...

and

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

. At the end of the semi-final, Macedonia was announced as having finished in the top 10 and consequently qualifying for the grand final. It was later revealed that Macedonia placed tenth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 71 points. The draw for the running order for the final was done by the presenters during the announcement of the ten qualifying countries during the semi-final and Macedonia was drawn to perform in position 15, following the entry from

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

and before the entry from

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

. Macedonia placed fourteenth in the final, scoring 47 points. The semi-final and final were broadcast in Macedonia on

and MTV Sat with commentary by Milanka Rašić. The Macedonian spokesperson, who announced the Macedonian votes during the final, was Karolina Petkovska.

Voting

Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Macedonia and awarded by Macedonia in the semi-final and grand final of the contest. The nation awarded its 12 points to Albania in the semi-final and the final of the contest.

Points awarded to Macedonia

Points awarded by Macedonia

References

{{Eurovision Song Contest 2004

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 2004

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 ...