The pre-party season has drawn to a close, with Eurovision 2018 rehearsals looming in the very near future. But during the couple of weeks of the tour which took artists to Latvia, London, Israel, the Netherlands and Spain, we were able to become more familiar with many of this year’s artists.
And Belgium’s SENNEK was one such act. The visual merchandiser took an unpaid break from her job at an IKEA for seven weeks so that she could totally focus on the pre-parties and Eurovision itself. We caught up with her at Tel Aviv’s Israel Calling and Amsterdam’s Eurovision in Concert.d
The creative process behind the “A Matter Of Time”
Meeting with our Deban in Tel Aviv, the woman born as Laura Groeseneken spoke of the creative process behind “A Matter of Time” and the accompanying video clip. When broadcaster VRT first asked the singer-songwriter to do Eurovision, she made it clear that she wanted to be closely involved with the entire decision making process.
During the first few months following her selection, she began writing. She worked on around 40 songs and she also received a lot of submissions which she and her co-writers evaluated. “A Matter Of Time” was written in November. And SENNEK immediatly fell in love with it.
For visuals and styling, SENNEK can count on some big names. One is the Belgian stylist Veronique Branquinho. The songstress tells us that she’s a huge fan of Veronique. She adores her fashion which possesses dark-romantic-punk vibes.
SENNEK also talks about her Eurovision predecessors. She has already met Blanche on several occasions. She considers the “City Lights” singer’s top five finish to be a wake-up call, proving that you don’t need to have a typical Eurovision song to do well. Sometimes it is better to provide something different to stand out and just be yourself on stage.
Performing “A Matter of Time” live
Some days later, SENNEK crossed paths with our William in Amsterdam.
There she regales him with her pre-party experiences thus far. On performing “A Matter Of Time” for the first time live in Israel, she admits that it was stressful. Yet she enjoyed the moment nonetheless.
She is more used to playing whole concerts with a band, so it’s taking her a little time to adjust to the three minute scenario.
The Flemish vocalist has been compared to everyone from Conchita Wurst and Sheryl Crow. But when asked who she would personally compare herself to, she says that it is important to be yourself.
Danira Boukhris announced as the Belgian spokesperson
In other Belgian news, Danira Boukhris Terkessidis — a TV-host with Greek/Moroccan roots — will deliver the country’s jury results during the Eurovision grand final.
The Flemish public already know her as a former journalist at VRT. She previously participated in a Belgian quiz called De Slimste Mens Ter Wereld (The Smartest Human On Earth), where she finished second.
In autumn 2017, she co-hosted a charity-singing-show called Steracteur Sterartiest together with regular Flemish commentator Peter Van de Veire.
Normally, the background behind the Belgian spokesperson shows the Atmomium in Brussels. This time VRT decided to hold a competition. People in Belgium can send a photo or small video as a potential background. The winning photo/video will be shown behind Danira.
What do you think of SENNEK’s Eurovision chances? Can she continue Belgium’s top ten streak? Let us know in the comments below.
This new blog layout hurts my head….
Is it just me or is their a new design of Wiwibloggs?
Yeah, what happened?
I’m not too sure I dig it. It’s a bit sensory overload for me but I like how we can like other people’s comments but I’m also having a bit of trouble navigating it.
I thought the same – too much distraction now – it was much clearer and easier to navigate before. I even think that it was a good thing, that you couldn’t vote a comment (up or down).
I think it’s great, it looks far slicker, and is easy to use! Change can be hard to get used to at first, but in no time at all we will forget the old version.
<—- The only thing I dislike is the profile pic I was randomly assigned, those colors do nothing for me.
Oh wait, it changed to a much nicer picture after I pressed “post”! I love blue. 🙂
I don’t get any – but also blue.
You are right about getting used to it and it is more easy to handly the writing of comments. The funny thing is – you can now edi your comment – and even after someone reacted with a reply.
Of course this doesn’t work as an excuse for a bad performance on Eurovision big nights, but this is actually something that we sometimes take for granted. It must be super weird for someone used to perform live music to just go on a huge stage for 3 minutes and sing along with a pre-recorded background with a big audience staring at you doing some karaoke. When you’re semi-pro like Sennek defined herself this must be a big challenge. I wonder how it will be for example for AWS, since they come from a totally different reality. It’s probably surreal.… Read more »
She will get better on each rehearsal, I am sure. She already was much better in Amsterdam, back on track.
William is such a wonderful person and he is so good and creative with words.
And here is he darling – I hoped I would find something on instagram. https://www.instagram.com/barnabytheshorthair/
Oh, so Barnaby has his own Instagram account? He’s very handsome, I can see why William can’t stop talking about him. And it seems that he’s also very opionated (I mean, it’s all on those big yellow eyes). Can’t wait for a video showing his reaction for the Eurovision acts! haha