Following another spectacular edition of Ukraine’s national selection competition Vidbir, the duo Alyona Alyona and Jerry Heil with their song “Teresa and Maria” have been chosen to represent Ukraine at the Eurovision Song Contest 2024!
Vidbir 2024 was broadcast on Saturday, February 3rd. For the safety and security of all involved, the show was filmed a day ahead of time at an undisclosed location (with live voting intended to be opened following the broadcast). That did not stop Ukraine one bit from putting on an amazing show with high production value full of great performances from not only the competitors, but also other Ukrainian Eurovision icons. The show introduction included Ruslana singing her 2004 winning song “Wild Dances” and last year’s representatives TVORCHI peforming a beautiful orchestral rendition of their song, “Heart of Steel”.
Eleven acts competed to represent Ukraine this year. The winning song “Teresa and Maria” is an ethnic pop + rap song with an amazing vocal performance by both women. Jerry Heil has an ethereal voice with a deep emotional quality, and Alyona Alyona’s rapping is so on fire that it makes you wonder when and how she takes a breath. Other standout performances included returning Eurovision artist Mélovin with “Dreamer” who also gave a great vocal performance and had a unique use of lasers in his staging, and Yagody with “Tsunamia” who had a powerful folk electronic song and wore intricate masks and outfits true to their folk band nature.
The full list of performances:
Yaktak - “Lalala”
Ingret - “Keeper”
Nazva - “Slavic English”
Anka - “Palala”
Drevo - “Endless Chain”
Alyona Alyona and Jerry Heil - “Teresa and Maria”
Mélovin - “Dreamer”
Skylerr - “Time is running out”
Ziferblat - “Place I call home”
Yagody - “Tsunamia”
Nahaba - “Glass”
The interval acts consisted of more Ukrainian Eurovision artists. Kalush Orchestra performed their 2022 winning song “Stefania”, Jamala (2016 Eurovision winner) and Tina Karol (Ukraine 2006) performed new songs. In tribute to this year’s hosts, Sweden, Verka Serduchka (Ukraine 2007) performed her new song called “Swedish Lullaby” (wearing, for some reason, Dallas Cowboys uniforms). Ukraine’s Junior Eurovision 2023 song “Kvitka” was performed by Anastasia Dymyd and Svitlana Tarabarova.
Finally, it came time for the results, or so we thought. Voting had been opened to Ukrainian citizens through the Diia app, but everyone soon found out that the large volume of users trying to vote at one time caused the app the crash. Thus, once the app was fixed, it was decided to allow voting to remain open until the following day in which the show would be re-broadcast followed by a live results segment.
In the end, Alyona Alyona and Jerry Heil emerged victorious in the televote by an astounding margin of 700,000+ votes out of over one million total votes cast, along with placing second with the juries. Ziferblat won the jury result and came second overall, with Mélovin rounding out the podium placing third in both juries and televote.
Huge congratulations to Alyona and Jerry, wishing them success in Malmö this year!