London Greek Radio

Canadian-Greek indie-pop artist Katerine Duska co-writes Greece’s entry, ‘Better Love’ with Greek-British musician Leon of Athens and Scottish songwriter David Sneddon.

Greek broadcaster ERT confirmed earlier this year that Ms Duska would fly the Greek flag at the Tel Aviv Expo for the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest in Israel.

Montreal-born singer-songwriter, Katerine, 29, has recorded the song in London with producer and friend Phil Cook.

Greek ERT TV bosses formed a working committee to choose the act for this year. Chairman Dimitris Papadimitriou labelled Katerine (translated), “A Greek artist and talent with immense quality and one that is strongly indicative of indie-pop music.”

‘Better Love’ features strong vocals and that trademark soulful rasp, with melodic hooks swirling beneath the orchestral drums.  This is a very original choice in terms of a Greek Eurovision entry and it’s a song that is uplifting and anthemic.

The well-constructed tune is a very strong competitor this year with a catchy chorus and hooks, which excitingly build-up as the three-minute song captivates.

The songstress has a unique and distinctive voice and she doesn’t hold back in this year’s Eurovision line-up.  Katerine provides a strong vocal hook on top of an anthemic chorus to ‘Better Love’ and the vocally-impressive singer excels in her performance.

The mid-tempo track is current indie-pop and radio-friendly; one that has already entered the London Greek Radio, (LGR), playlist.

The ‘Better Love’ which the song refers to is the eternal quest for a higher love, one which is deep, unconditional and unapologetic. The lyrics about love and empowerment most people and no doubt the listener can relate to it on some level.

Her soaring high-notes combined with strong melodic hooks give the tune that feel of a “competitive” package and a possible game-changer, as Greece embarks on a comeback to the Eurovision final, after a shock exit at the semi-finals last year.

LGR’s Tony Neophytou said, “I think that this is a great Eurovision competition song, one that is a sure-fire qualifier and potentially a Top 10 in the final.”

The music video relies on strong pop-art visuals with pink, light-colours. The creative woman behind this video is Efi Gousi and she manages the staging in Tel Aviv.  Katerine Douska wears pink reinforcing the theme of purist romanticism and a “better love”.  The video is a females-only cast looking very disciplined and artistic.

Katerine said that the staging is planned to compliment the “pop-art” atmospheric concept and she will be joined on stage by backing-vocalists Erasma Markides and Eleni Ponzantzidou along with dancers Dimitra Vlachou and Fania Grigoriou.

Ms Duska was raised in a Greek home listening to esteemed composers Mikis Theodorakis, Manos Hatzidakis and Mimis Plessas, spending countless hours as a young teen tuned into soul, pop and R&B.  She has a background in classical music where she studied classical guitar and interpreting Arias and Lieder, venturing into ‘experimental song-writing’ influenced greatly by the indie-pop and Neo-soul genre.

Katerine studied law at the Kapodistrian University of Athens, only to realise that music was what she actually wanted to pursue professionally.

Katerine rose to indie stardom in 2014 with the hit, ‘One in a Million’ and her cover of the Arctic Monkeys, “Do I Wanna Know”, which has reached over a million views on YouTube.

Her 2015 debut album ‘Embodiment’ won critics over with the lead track “Fire Away”, featuring prominently in a Nescafe Canada advertising campaign.

Greece competes in the Eurovision first Semi-Final which airs on Tuesday 14th May at 8pm GMT.

She performs in the running order of 17 at slot number 16.

The Eurovision Song Contest Final is broadcast on Saturday 18th May at 8pm GMT.

For all of your Eurovision news on Greece, make sure you regularly check back to lgr.co.uk and tune into LGR to hear ‘Better Love’ this Eurovision season.

London Greek Radio wish Katerine and the Greek delegation the very best of luck in the competition.

DODONI

London Greek Radio are delighted to welcome their newest sponsor to the LGR airwaves.

As of this Friday 19th May, iconic dairy brand DODONI will be sponsoring radio presenter Panagiotis Balalas during his Friday show, which airs every week between 6-8pm

DODONI S.A. was founded in 1963, counting 54 years of authentic tradition and history. The company based in Ioannina produces authentic, purely Greek dairy and cheese products, using 100% Greek cow’s, goat’s and sheep’s milk collected daily by an expanded network of 5,000 Greek producers, mainly active in the region of Epirus.

With more than 10,000 selling points in Greece and export activity in 43 countries, DODONI has 9 categories of dairy and cheese products and produces 80 distinct products. This truly authentic Greek brand is distinguished for its taste, quality and their 100% Greek identity.

Now DODONI will not only be known for their exceptional Feta cheese, but for their collaboration with our station to bring you the best Greek hits (as well as the best Greek cheeses).

We, Greeks, have many reasons to be proud of. One of them is our feta. A cheese so special and unique that has become famous all over the world.

If you are a fan of Feta (and frankly who isn’t) Dodoni explain why every cheese lover needs to give their brand of feta a try:

“DODONI feta, using exclusively 100% greek pasteurized goat’s and sheep’s milk, that arrives every day in our premises even from the most distant farms.

Dodoni Feta

DODONI feta, with its unique taste and nutrition value, has gained worldwide recognition for its high quality. That’s why it has won so many local and international awards, plus a place in tables around the world.”

For more information about DODONI and their products, visit their website dodoni.eu/en

If you love to cook with Feta, just as much as you love to eat it, then be sure to visit a special little corner of the DODONI website where they offer their unique cheese based recipes: Click here to visit their “brunch” section, which should be enough to whet the appetite and flare the creativity of any aspiring chefs.

Last night Cyprus and Greece celebrated qualifying through to this Saturday night’s Eurovision Song Contest final. This year’s Eurovision will be held in Kyiv, Ukraine, at the International Exhibition Centre IEC.

Demy (representing Greece) and Hovig (representing Cyprus) made it to the Top 10 qualifying songs after enduring a very competitive semi-final phase. The semi-final rankings will not be announced publicly until after this weekend’s Eurovision final, which maximises fans’ suspense.

It is a result which spelt the Greek’s return to the contest’s final after last year’s very early exit. It’s a solid come-back, for this country who’s always qualified except that minor-blip, which we can now begin to erase from our memories.

Demy looked absolutely stunning in her pale outfit as she performed her song ‘This is love’. It’s a progressively up-tempo track which is catchy and radio-friendly. The track was composed by Eurovision veteran Dimitris Kontopoulos, with creative staging by Fokas Evangelinos, the Greek’s dynamic Eurovision team.

Demy secures Greek’s place in the final…

The 25-year-old Greek pop singer seemed to enjoy her time on the stage, joined by her dancers Iasonas Mandilas and Paris Paraskevadis-Planets. She was also accompanied by off-stage backing-vocalists Erasmia Markidi, Evgenia Liakou, and Marcus Giakoumoglou. For those who missed it, we can confirm it was a very slick and well rehearsed performance.

Cypriot singer Hovig also celebrated a successful night. His performance involved an excellent staging concept which complimented his song greatly. He performed a modern radio-friendly track with electronic beats, written by Thomas G:Son, a well-known Swedish composer and producer in Eurovision circles.

Hovig pulls out all the stops for his gravity song…

28-years-old Hovig, a Cypriot artist of Armenian heritage, shows he was proud to have this chance to fly the Cypriot flag. The Cypriot broadcaster internally selected Hovig and G:son for this year’s Cypriot song.

Hovig was vocally very solid and interacted well with his dancers Marios Charalambous and Pavlos Lazarou Kertepene. The artist seemed relaxed and sung his cool song, mastering the stage’s full width to tell us his story, about gravity.

The Cypriot artistic director Charis Savva put much effort in to make sure he nailed the performance, and clearly it worked extremely well. The Cypriot’s have pulled out all the stops to be noticed and they were.

Greece and Cyprus confirmed they will be performing second-half draw for the final, with 26 countries competing. Demy and Hovig have to wait till Thursday to find out the other qualifiers. What we know for certain is that they have earned their place next to the big 5 automatic placers: the UK, Spain, France, Germany and Italy in the final this weekend.

The Eurovision Song Contest Final airs this Saturday at 8 pm UK time; you can follow it live on BBC 1.

For those who missed the first semi final, you can catch the Top 10 qualifiers being revealed, here:

It has been confirmed that singer Demy will represent Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 which will be broadcast from Kyiv, in Ukraine. A song has yet to be publicly released however reports confirm that a song will be selected shortly.

Broadcaster ERT officially confirmed internally selecting Eurovision composer Dimitris Kontopoulos and creative stage director Fokas Evangelinos who were give the job of selecting an artist; they’d chosen Demy to fly the Greek flag.

Demy

25 year old Athenian born Demy is a Greek popular artist and Greek fans and local media are already referring to them as the dynamic dream team; suggesting the country has confidence in this years competition entry.

According to an official press release which was released by ERT, Demy aka Demetra Papadea will sing three songs composed by Dimitris live on Greek television on Monday 6th March. Moreover the official music videos to each song will also be revealed on this date.

The public won’t have a chance to listen to any of the songs before that live event, which leaves fans in eager anticipation. Viewers shall be tele-voting for their favourite song through SMS and phone-calls to make sure the best song chosen very wisely.

The information we have been given on the 3 songs is as follows: choice one ‘Angels‘ is a radio-friendly pop-rock ballad with lyrics written by Demy’s siter, Romy Papadea. Choice two ‘When the morning comes around‘ is an ‘American style ballad’ by lyricist John Ballard. The third choice ‘This is love‘ is up-tempo track, jointly written by Romy Papadea and John Ballard. The tunes have already been recorded with ERT’s string Ensemble orchestra whilst the video-clips have taken the song’s creators to the Ukrainian city of Odessa.

With Dimitris and Fokas behind Demy, this year feels for like it could be a strong come-back, for Greece. Not least to try to erase last year’s very early exit.

Fokas was in fact responsible for Elena Paparizou’s ‘My number one’ winning entry in the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest which was held in Kyiv. 12 years later we are back in Kyiv with Fokas (and Dimitris Kontopoulos) heading the team leaving fans with high expectations. Not to mention that Eurovision followers are hoping Kyiv itself is a lucky city for Greece as our only ever win happened there.

Demy is signed to the Panik records family; she won Best New Artist in 2012’s Mad Music Awards. Her hits have included Poses xiliades kalokairia, Tha meineis feugontas, Nothing better, O hlios featuring Alex Leon & Epsilon, Mono mprosta, I zoi, H alitheia moiazei psema, Kratise me and Emeis.

Demy is currently appearing in the musical Mamma Mia! alongside Despina Vandi. She also starred in Fame The Musical, Priscilla, The Sound of Music, and Addams Family.

The Greek entrant will compete in the Eurovision Song Contest’s first semi final, which will air on Tuesday 9th May, televised live on BBC 4, advancing hopefully to the Eurovision Final on Saturday 13th May 2017.

The Eurovision Semi-Final Allocation Draw carried out on 31^st January, at the Column Hall of Kyiv City State Administration, in Ukraine, officially launched the start to Eurovision season.

The Cypriot and Greek entry performers have been drawn to sing in the First Semi-Final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2017, airing on Tuesday 9^th May live on BBC4 at 8 p.m. GMT.

We last visited Kyiv in 2005, that proved absolutely one of the best Eurovision song contests ever, with Elena Paparizou’s song ‘My Number One’ which won the Eurovision, bringing the only Greek victory in the competition.

The Semi-Finals will span Tuesday 9^th May to Thursday 11^th May concluding with the second semi-final, on that occasion. The Eurovision Final will go out live on Saturday 13^th May at 8 p.m. GMT to be held at the Kyiv International Exhibition Centre (IEC).

Cyprus and Greece is amongst 18 countries, conclude the first semi-final. How it works really… The Top 10 qualifiers who pass the round in each allocated semi, with 50:50 Tele-voting, and professional jury points. The semi-heats producing our lucky 20 qualifiers on both Tuesday and Thursday will be entered in the live final.

The 37 Semi-Finalists have been allocated into six pots, based on historical voting patterns as calculated by the contest’s official tele-voting partner Digame. Drawing from different pots helps to reduce the chance of so-called neighbourly voting and increases suspense in the Semi-Finals.

The UK, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, and host’s Ukraine thanks to Jamala’s winning song last year are direct finalists. The Big 5 has that upgraded status, as Eurovision’s biggest financial contributory members to the European Broadcasting Union, organisers of the Eurovision.

Hovig Demirdjian (left), Demy aka Demetra Papadea (right)… compete in Eurovision Semi-Final 1…

Hovig aka Hovig Demirdjian will represent Cyprus in Kyiv, internally selected by the CyBc broadcaster. He is a Cypriot pop singer with over 10 year’s music career; he went all the way to the live shows of Greek X-Factor in 2009, and has never given up on his quest to represent the Cypriot flag at the song contest. He will sing our Cypriot tune called ‘Gravity‘, composed by Swedish producer Thomas G:Son. His song has a Eurovision feel and potentially radio-friendly hit song, suggests the song-writer.

The official video is due to be released in March and we can’t wait to get our hand on it to share it with our listeners on LGR and through lgr.co.uk.

Demy aka Demetra Papadea will be the Greek representative, with her tune due to be separately selected by the tele-voting public, on Monday 6th March 2017. She has three songs exclusively written for her by the Eurovision legend Dimitris Kontopoulos with creative staging director Fokas Evangelinos, our dynamic team.  So what happened, Dimitris and Fokas appointed Demy, suggesting she was the best choice to the powers that be that’s how we have Demy, to fly the Greek flag to make a strong come-back to Eurovision this year…

She is signed to the Panik Records family, with a substantial volume of pop hits.

This year’s Greek trio is dubbed the ‘dream team’ surely working very hard to come up with a competitive song. Dimitris and Fokas, have a long illustrious run in the song contest with many Top 10s including Sakis Rouvas, to Sergey Lazarev, Russian entrant in 2016’s Eurovision Song Contest, finished Top 3 on finale night.

The viewers in the United Kingdom are able to vote for their favourites in the first semi-final, airing on BBC 4, so too, Italy and Spain. Meanwhile, Germany, Ukraine and France are voting in the second semi-final of Eurovision on the Thursday evening.

This year’s ‘Celebrating Diversity’ theme will define Kyiv Eurovision welcoming 43 countries, to the annual music event. Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest, Jon Ola Sand said: ”The notion of celebrating diversity builds on last year’s theme of ‘Come Together’ and is at the heart of Eurovision values: it is all-inclusive and all about countries around Europe, and beyond, joining together to celebrate both our common ground and our unique differences, as well as the love of great music”.

The running order will be determined by the producers of the show and approved by EBU’s Reference Group in mid-March.

Helena Paparizou Facebook

This week Helena Paparizou decided to tease her fans with a sneak peek of her brand new music video.

The popular singer is currently filming her new music video for her latest song release “Αγκάλιασέ με”!

Helena posted of a photo [left] of the filming of her new video onto her Facebook account for all her fans to see. Helena looked gorgeous as ever and the photo was captioned with some of the lyrics of the song.

Helena’s fans also have the opportunity to enjoy watching her as a mentor on the hit TV show, The Voice of Greece!

We are all looking forward to listening to Helena’s new song as well as watching her new music video. Watch this space for the official release.

London Cypriot singer Kyriacos Georgiou was in Sofia filming his music video of his new hit song, collaborating with Jackpot and Bulgarian singer Maria on the track ‘Sto Poto Mou Rixse Staxti‘. In Bulgarian it’s called ‘Ayde Chao’, and since it was released has notched up a pretty huge number of YouTube hits.

On August 6th he was there for the shooting of his video and worked with Maria to convey the desert-like backdrop to his song. The video has the stamp of the famous Bulgarian director and producer Luydmil Illarionov-Liusu who has been working with Nikos Vertis for the last 5 years.

The project came about by Kyriaco himself after being approached straight after a concert with Despina Vandi in Sofia, in January. He was asked about the possibility of releasing his music in Bulgaria and co-working with one of the country’s big producers and artists. They were asked to make a half Greek-half Bulgarian version of his song, which was already a big hit there, with one of their top singers Maria, who has previously done two duets with the well known Azis and Stan!

The 23 year-old singer previously worked with Jackpot in Posidonio two years ago, striking up a really good friendship; and they liked the idea of doing a song together.

Kyriacos told lgr.co.uk ‘My manager Vaggelis Papadopulos has been beside me for the last two years and we have managed to do some great projects together and he has opened up a huge market for me in Bulgaria as well as in Greece. I thank him loads for that as you always need a good team and co-ordinator by your side!’

Kyriacos revealed exclusively to us that he is currently in the studio recording a new single that will be released at the end of September by Spin Records.

He is in talks at the moment about the likely venue and place he will be performing this winter.

If you have yet to check out the music video for ‘Sto Poto Mou Rixse Staxti (Ayde Chao)’ then stop everything and watch this:

Argo fly the Greek flag at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 in Stockholm with this year’s entry ‘Utopian Land‘, which has a very positive message to the song’s concept, which represents Hellas, at the annual music competition.

The new group from Thessaloniki is made up of six members with vocalists Cristina Lachana, Maria Elbrus, Hip-Hop artist/song-writer Vladimiros Sofianides, Kostas Topouzis, Elias Kesides and Alekos Papadopoulos, who collectively are playing Pontic Lyra, percussion and tabor. Argo was quickly assembled by a few members of another group ‘Europond’, to specifically write and perform this entry.

Dancer Vasilis Roxenos will step in for Elias, and beefs up the songs live staging concept, this full quota of six people therefore, will give us the Greek feel and identity and style, to our song.

Maria Lyrakaki, will choreograph the song’s staging concept, with lots dancing and movement, which fuses Pontiaka elements and modern dance, it’s quite effective and very Greek obviously, that’s something which this ‘LGR jury’ review, approves.

The up-tempo track fusing Modern and traditional Pontiaka music elements, definitely stands out as a very Greek, Eurovision song. The instrumental intro of the song, sounds really, really good and sort of mysterious, introduces Christina to give us a solo ‘amane’. There’s also the bridge part 2:01 to 2:20 which gives us the very loud beating of the drum, its intensity only works to emphasis the raw ethnicity of the track’s feel.

It feels very brave as an effort and entry, mostly, because it tries to fuse a lot of things, rap, hip-hop, ethnic, linguistic switches, with the meaty hip-hop parts sung in Greek and Pontiac dialect, to English chorus changes…

The song’s positive message fights for an optimistic future or, ‘utopia’, and calls on our collective will really, to battle amongst other things, the refugee crisis.

Those Hip-Hop verses are sung entirely in Greek & Pontiac dialect, they have a purpose, to give us that message and the rapper certainly, believes in his song. The English chorus feeds the optimistic line of the song’s ‘fight for a utopian land’ and asks you to go with them on the ‘fun’ adventure.

Interestingly, the band’s members are refugee descendents of Pontus, Sukhumi, Abkhazia, and Georgia.

The official video which accompanies our song embodies the full ethnic Pontiac costume and dance, helping to emphasise music roots to our ‘Elliniki simmetoxi’.

We are the rise of the rising sun, dance with us and have some fun.

We are the rise of the rising sun, fight with us for a utopian land (Chorus)

The video’s positive message is of looking only to the future with optimism, and constantly moving forward. This concept, sees, athlete type aka Apostolos Lazaridis running, he gives his glance back and continues his forward movement, to the ‘rising sun’, which is the groups’ ultimate route with this song’s theme.

The powers that be ERT Greek Television and the channel President Dionysis Tsaknis internally picked Argo, which favoured local produced Greek song, to represent the nation this year.

The UK will not be voting in the first semi-final but instead will be voting, in the second of the semi-finals. Only the host Sweden, France, Spain and other first semi-final nations will get to vote including Cyprus, which also competes alongside the Greek song for those qualifying spaces.

Argo competes at the Eurovision First Semi-Final which airs on Tuesday 10th May, performing early in the 2nd slot at the incredible Ericcson Globe Arena.

It has been confirmed that this year’s Eurovision Song Contest will see Greece and Cyprus facing the Eurovision’s first Semi-Final, which airs on Tuesday 10th May 2016.

The countries found out their fate at Eurovision’s Live Allocation Draw, on the 25th January at City Hall in Stockholm.

The way the semis are set-up, will mean only 10 qualifiers will make it out of each semi final and progress to the 14th of May Final, a few days later. 43 countries will be participating at this year’s Eurovision, of these 20 semi final qualifiers will make it to the final night. Hoping to clinch their place will be our Greek and Cypriot entry, competing among 18 countries, in the first sing-off.

The five direct finalists will be again, UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, France and Sweden who won the right to host after Måns Zelmerlöw winning entry, ‘Heroes’.

Minus One will sing ‘Alter Ego’ for Cyprus

This is what we know so far: Cyprus entry have Minus One represent the nation with a song called ‘Alter Ego‘, which the boys co-write, with Swede composer Thomas G:son. The tune only recently recorded in Stockholm, amidst temperatures of only, in fact -1 °C, will be officially premiered for the first time on 22nd February, really soon it appears. The five piece band made up of vocalist, Francois Micheletto, will be assisted by fellow band members Harrys Pari, Costantinos Amerikanos, Antonis Loizides and Chris J, who will be collectively playing the drums and guitar.

The Greek entry is almost certain to be selected internally by the Greek State Television, or ERT. Sources have also suggested; the song will be of a Greek feel, or ethnic style, illustrating the nation’s incredible music to the rest of the fellow Eurovision nations.

At the Ceremony of drawing the semi-finalists, this year’s official Eurovision Slogan was revealed, ‘Come Together’, Martin Österdahl, Executive Producer of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest said: “The Eurovision Song Contest is never about borders, politics or ideologies. It is about reaching across all the boundaries that separates us human beings from each other”.

The show producers will allocate definite running order of the songs of each semi, likely by the final week of March.

Winter Appeal for Refugee Camps

Everyone must be aware of the massive influx of refugees from war devastated countries to Europe, and the dangerous journeys they have endured. Transit camps are where many of them end up, a crossing point from Greece to Macedonia.

Andrew Marr, a volunteer worker with Hackney Cypriot Association, is now at one of these camps, working alongside the Hellenic Red Cross, Medicins Sans Frontieres and other charity volunteers.  Andrew has appealed for help in what is an increasingly fluid and desperate situation. Border restrictions increase; the European response to the crisis is unresolved; and the severe winter weather has taken hold.

Andrew has appealed to his friends in the UK for help, and how can we refuse?  At the beginning of November he wrote:

“We are desperately short of everything; we have not nearly enough coming in. For me, the numbers of people heading our way, with the everyday possibility of FYROM (Macedonia) closing the border and the prospect of sub-zero temperatures, biting Northern Bora winds and driving rain or snow, we have a humanitarian disaster waiting to happen here. 

We need winter clothes, particularly children’s and babies (hundreds of children come through every day, some with no shoes at all) we need just about everything for babies; blankets, small easy to transport sanitary products such as toothbrushes, shavers, soaps etc  

Local people are very generous, and visit the camp with hot cooked food, but there are no kitchen facilities onsite”

Hackney Cypriot Association is collecting essential clothing and everyday goods that are urgently required and sending it over to the camps. This appeal is for the money needed for packing, freight transport and any other urgent needs at the camps.

To find out how you can help or to send a donation click here to visit the Hackney Cypriot Association charity page.