It’s all go in Moldova. Following the submission period for the country’s national selection Etapa Naţională 2023, broadcaster TRM has now chosen 33 songs to progress to the next round of the process — the live auditions.
Interested participants were able to submit songs until 16 January. TRM made quick work of whittling down the entries, with those selected for the live auditions revealed on Tuesday 17.
Etapa Naţională 2023: Live audition acts
You can listen to all 33 songs at eurovision.md
- Vele Band – “The Game of the Moldavian Nation”
- Corina Ivanov – “When Love’s Real”
- NÖRDIKA – “Skueeze Paradise”
- Nihilist & Lisa Nicky – “Final Destination”
- NÖRDIKA – “Damn and down”
- Victor Gulick – “Let’s Dance”
- Donia – “Red Zone”
- The Osoianu Sisters – “Bade, badişor, badiță”
- OL – “Why You Play It Cool”
- Adelina Iordachi – “Deja Vu”
- Nikko T. – “Destiny”
- Y-Limit – “Live in Harmony”
- Crista – “Forest Green Forest”
- Sunstroke Project – “Yummy Mommy”
- NR 11 – “Goodbye”
- VERA – “Your Time”
- Massimo Sinceri – “In Questo Domani”
- Sasha Bognibov – “My Favorite Schoolgirl”
- Rise – “Don’t Tumble”
- Lisa Volk – “Letter to the Country”
- ADA DEEA – “Mystic Rose”
- COSMINA – “Indestructible”
- Angel Kiss – “Now I Know”
- Gesica Sîrbu – “I’m in love”
- Aliona Moon – “Take Me”
- Tania Pituşcan – “Miorita”
- Pasha Parfeni – “The Sun and the Moon”
- Ricky Ardezianu – “Una rosa rossa”
- Harmony Scuffle – “Favorite One”
- Valeria Condrea – “We’re now different”
- LOLA – “Temperature”
- Diana Elmas – “Miracle”
- Nino – “It would be nice”
The line-up includes three familiar faces for Eurovision fans.
Sunstroke Project have already been to Eurovision twice, in 2010 and 2017. They finished in third place on their latter appearance, Moldova’s best ever result. If they were to return to Eurovision again in 2023, it would be the first time since they became a duo — violin player Anton Ragoza left the group in 2018.
Pasha Parfeni and Aliona Moon are also Eurovision alumni. Both took Moldova to 11th place on the scoreboard, in 2012 and 2013 respectively.
Live audition details
The live auditions for Etapa Naţională 2023 will be held on 28 January at 14:00 EET (13:00 CET). They will be broadcast on TV channel Moldova 2, as well as on website www.eurovision.md.
The decision of who will make it through to the main national final will be purely down to a jury. Names of the jury members will be revealed on the day itself, but it will consist of either three or five people. Those who form part of the live audition jury will not be able to sit on the jury that votes in the grand final.
The results of the live auditions will be revealed on the same day during a special programme on TV channel Moldova 1 at 19:30 EET. The ten acts who earned the highest scores from the jury will advance to Etapa Naţională 2023.
What do you think of the line-up for the Etapa Naţională 2023 live auditions? Which songs are you loving on first listen? Let us know in the comments below.
Pasha Parfeny is very outstanding and definitely a better choice than Sunstroke Project
Sunstroke Project FTW
Just catching up on these. I guess Pasha or Sunstroke are the best options here, though I enjoyed Crista and Victor Gulick too.
moldova, aliona moon, i beg
Just putting it out there: Sasha Bognibov, who has just submitted a song called ‘My Favourite Schoolgirl’, is an English teacher. Ouch…
Man, that’s some shady sh*t! ._.
And what happened to Anton the violinist of Sunstroke Project? Why is he no longer in the band?
No he left to peruse other projects. Just a duo now
By the way, what ever happened to Olia Tira? Will she be coming back to the Moldova national selection in the upcoming years? I sure hope so.
Pasha Parfeny!! He’a such a cutie. Send him again, Moldova!
His Lautar song and choreography was so much fun when he went!
This time his entry is even stronger than 2012.
Oh I honestly need Aliona Moon to win because she’s filling the empty space left behind by When God Shut The Door for me.
This is the strongest Moldovan selection ever! (In my opinion at least haha)
Moldova is stronger than Belgium, Croatia, Malta is surprise for me
Malta, Belgium and Denmark have the worst preselections so far.
Moldova is a big surprise this year with some good songs.
parfeny for sure
Im a simple man
I see a list of song released
I go to comments
I scroll the comments, see which songs are prefered by the other
I go and listen to these songs
The national final was cancelled last year because of the COVID situation in Moldova, at least that’s the broadcaster’s reason.
I’m bored so I’mma dive in and listen to all 33 songs.
OK so ummm suddenly Yummy Mummy doesn’t seem so bad after listening to the other 32.
But maybe once I listened to the official entry in full and see it live I may like it…? There are a few there that may grow on me.
Also what is up with Nino’s It Would Be Nice” LMAO
I listened to Cha Cha Cha and I feel much better now : )
Let´s dance in Liverpool…
We are next year in Finland.
Taking into account that Moldova will surely rely on a familiar name, it’s safe to assume that they’ll choose Aliona, Pasha or Sunstroke Project.
Personally, I’d be fine with any choice as long as it isn’t the latter. I know Sunstroke Project are Eurovision legends but their current attempt is dreadful.
Either Donia – Res Zone or Pasha Perfeni – Soarele si Luna. The rest are gone in the wind.
Pasha Parfeny really delivers with a modern ethno track !
Ok, I’ve gone through all of these 33 songs, mostly in the full, with occasional skip of super-boring ones after 2 minute mark. Conclusion is that this is, as expected, another overall weak selection from Moldova. I had a lot of it on my bingo cards last month, when I semi-joked about who’ll represent Moldova. I get a point for a wedding band song (F. Vele), very catchy bop with very questionable lyrics (Temperatura), S. Bognibov being back (unfortunately), someone butchering English lyrics from the song of Persson sisters (D. Elmas), someone recording on a mobile device (Valeria), someone being… Read more »
Soarele si luna is in my top 3. Possibly my 2nd.
Perssons just made a momentum for me in Lithuania with Donata, and yeah… their Moldovan offering isn’t impressive at all. At least it’s better than Diana’s last entry. That was unlistenable.
Gesica is likely a variation of Jessica, but I have no idea whether it’s her actual name. Jessika from Malta is born as Jessica Muscat with a C, and a K is probably an artistic touch for the stage.
Dreamer is not a bad song and it’s way better than Donata’s last PIN effort, The Way I Am. That was awful.
I already know that Aliona Moon’s songs is gonna be high in my ranking if she wins. Love her song.
Do you remember Diana Rotaru – Dale Dale. Well i just found out that she is back under the name Lola and her song is Temperatura. Her song once again is absolute bop.
YES same artist (the site of Moldova Song Contest there are all the songs !)
How is the quality of Moldova’s national selection WAY higher than Romania’s?
There’s about 10 really good quality produced tracks here. Props to Moldova, I’m sure they’ll land another top-10 result this year!
This resembles a 33-car pileup!
Have you even listened to the songs? Many of them are leagues ahead of national final entries from Romania, Malta or Croatia.
I painfully listened to all 33 of them in their entirety before having written the comment (even to Ricky Ardezianu). I find only Christa and Aliona Moon bearable. I haven’t listened to Malta or Romania (based on past experience I can believe they are leagues behind Moldova). As to Croatia I’m not thrilled with this year’s Dora either, but I think they could do well in May if they make a good choice. On the other hand, Moldova this year is beyond help.
I have to correct myself, Crista’s song is fine, not exactly something that would fare well at Eurovision, but who knows.
Apparently Sunstroke Project are quite Pro-R**sia, so I honestly hope they don’t win. I guess it’s because of Kirkov.
Source? I found nothing on SP being pro-P-man, or Kirkoroff being involved in this song in any way.
They’re friends with him amongst other Russian singers, they even rushed to R**sian tv show in 2017 where they showed love and support for Julija Samoilova who couldn’t perform due to Ukraine banning her.
These guys go where the money is at.
Kirkov isn’t part of this song, but R**sian money will find it’s way here again.
There is a post on their instagram from all the way back to February 24 supporting Ukraine, so they are definitely not supporting war.
Weren’t that supportive before, snakes live in our backyard unless we get rid of them.
I have not followed them, so I would not know, as I do not like Sunstroke Project myself, not my type of music at all. I don’t know anyone from Moldova personally, but I noticed that the mentality there is way different than in the Baltics, for example. Let’s take Natalia Gordienko as an example – if a singer from Latvia or Lithuania would appear in a TV show in Russia like Natalia did when she took part in Masked Singer, their career would be over and they could pack their bags and move to Russia. From what I’ve seen,… Read more »
In general, we should all understand the thing with Ukraine and Maruv in 2019 now. Now I am glad she did not go to Eurovision for Ukraine that year, she would not have been a good representative for the country and its values.
Jamala knew exactly what she is doing when she asked that famous question.
Is Patrisha A Latvian citizen of Russian descent or is she part of the Russian minority population? It could be she might be scared for her Russian relatives like if she actually comes out and said she’s very much against the war, danger could come to them. They probably can’t leave or want to leave Russia. With Latvia being a very pro Ukraine country, maintaining a neutral stance on the war is probably worse than being pro-Russian.
Patrisha is Latvian of Russian descent. To elaborate, in an interview on May 10, Patrisha said that she does not pick sides, as she has family in both – Russia and Ukraine, and also in Belarus, that everyone in her family is for peace and against war, but there is inner conflict between them. It might not have been the right choice of words what got her in this situation, but she means well. However, Latvians are often quick to jump to conclusions when it comes to sensitive topics like this, especially involving Latvians whose first language is Russian. From… Read more »
Also, regarding this – I am of Russian descent myself, and when the war started I called my grandma (who is a Russian living in Latvia), discussion started about the war and we had a fight, as I “offended her beloved P*tin”. Now we barely contact each other, so I can understand Patrisha not wanting to lose family members due to similar reasons, but sometimes you just have to cut people off.
That sounds familiar. With my own country America being so polarized, there have been people who cut off contact with relatives because of political disagreements.
Is the Natalia still active in Russia, or has she cut her Ties since the war started? Isn’t Moldova against the war because they’re afraid that Russia could invade them too because they are also a non-EU member And a former Soviet state?
Ms Gordienko performed in special episode of Masked Singer dedicated to Kirkorov’s birthday, on April 30, 2022, two months after the war started. After further investigation while avoiding my work duties, I saw that her PR manager Kate also has Russian country code for her phone number, and her career is mainly based in Russia. However, she has been invited to interviews to the Russian-speaking Moldovan TV show MEGA UTRO multiple times after the war started. I found out about this only because Sunstroke Project performed “Yummy Mommy” on MEGA UTRO as well, which makes me think MEGA UTRO has… Read more »
I have no plans to listen to all of these songs because I know only a small portion will be chosen so I’ll wait for that, but I did listen to a recap of the selection and there are a few songs that do pique my interest. It’s a mixed bag, but there are a few genuinely good songs here. I hope those get chosen, unless the artists drop the ball in the auditions.
I just listened to Sunstroke’s and I did not like it lol. I am curious to see what Aiona and Pasha sent but I’ll just wait until after the auditions to listen to the 10 selected as well.
I admit I considered myself a bit hypocritical for not wanting to listen to all the Moldovan songs here when I wanna hear all 30 songs for the Lithuanian selection. However, to be fair, all 30 songs are competing for Lithuania while only 10 out of the 33 Moldovan songs will be in their final. I guess I don’t want to be attached to something that won’t get selected. I’ll just wait to see who will be the 10 lucky contestants.
I listened to the Moldavian songs LMAOOOOO
I’ll do the same with Lithuania f it why not lol. Tho I think what I’ll do is listened to the songs that qualify from the heat to the semi and skip the eliminated acts. Less brain damage for me that way haha.
I only went ahead and listened to Sunstroke Project cus I was curious. The song is really catchy and fun but the lyrics are not good lol. I also struggle to understand them in the first place…
Knowing Moldova’s taste, and taking into account the fan base some of the singers over there have, I think it is a safe bet to say that Pasha Parfeni is going back to ESC. Thanks God his song is def top 3 of this national final, so it won’t be a mistake when he ends up being the chosen one.
Oh I didn’t even clock that he’s there. I’ll go ahead and wait until the 10 songs are revealed tho I think.
He’s the biggest name in the competition, at least for Moldovan people themselves. It doesn’t meter what or who we (“outside of Moldova people”) know, ’cause they will choose Pasha whatever he send. Same as last year and every year before that, the biggest name wins it in Moldova.
I say that “The Osoianu Sisters” are 2nd in 2017 after SunStroke Project !
”Adelina – Deju Vu” or ”Valeria – We’re now different” could POTENTIALLY be ESC winners if the live performances are on point and the stagings are creative. These songs are something absolutely UNIQUE for ESC, even more unique than the singing babushkas!!!
I agree on Valeria! I hope Kalush will give the ESC trophy to Valeria.
Why are they doing auditions? we know that they will select the Sunstroke Project.
I was hoping for a new artist to be given the chance to represent Moldova and not the same artists..
The question you should be asking is who’s got the money to fund their own Eurovision expenditures since the broadcaster is broke as hell. It could likely be a returning artist who might be more successful than a newer or up-and-coming artist.
Huge respect to Moldova, when a country says they have a diverse selection, they are mostly lying but Moldova serves it up straight. There is surely pretty much something for everyone here, it definitely feels like every possible musical combination has been explored. I am particularly pleased for the artist who has found their Casio keyboard in the attic and I’m fairly certain there’s a recording from the garage band I used to be in when I was 17. And I most certainly reserve judgment on the schoolgirl song until I’ve read the lyrics. There is far too much to… Read more »
Temperatura is as good as SloMo.
Sunstroke Project 2017 Hey Mama! Sunstroke Project 2023 Yummy Mommy! Lol they have a thing for the mothers it’s blatant..they are so fun and so Eurovision iconic. Moldova in Eurovision is totally iconic now and these guys contributed largely to that.
I was surprised when the voice of Diana Elmas played, it does not match her picture.
She is using her older photos or photoshop. She performed last year using similar photos, and looked different on stage.
I’m not judging, but her voice definitely sounded more mature than I was expecting. The picture looks almost CGI.
Sure, nothing wrong with her looks, but her appearance on stage is quite different than her appearance on the promotional photos.
Would love to see Aliona Moon back, but it will probably be Sunstroke Project with that horrid song.
You know it’s gonna be Sunstroke Project. It’s Moldova.
Surorile Osianu would give the commentators something to laugh at, and make good television. A bit like Moldova’s song for Torino, but not as good and won’t get as good a result. Still, I like it. Much better than a standard slick love groove urban whatever.
WHERE IS MISSCATYLOVE
“Outro” got rejected by TRM, so no Misscatylove
So, someone actually got rejected, but Bognibov is still in? I was hoping that their excuse is a ”no-rejection” policy. 🙁
That would also explain the entries like Nino’s or the one from Viola Julea from last year. I have no new theories now…
I think it was a joke that Outstayed it’s welcome.
If you don’t understand high-concept avant-garde music, just say so.
And yet…still infinitely better than Sasha Bognibov.
WOW! What a diverse selection of style of songs with about 5 songs with potential. Out of the returning acts I really think Aliona definitely has the best song however I really like Pasha song. Sunstroke Project did not grab me like their previous 2 Eurovision entries. Out of the newbies I have to confess COSMINA “Indestructible” is my second favourite because vocally she knocks it out the park and the song is decent enough. If she can sing like that live like on the studio version she really deserves to get votes. Quite like Crista “Forest Green Forest” because… Read more »
Sunstroke Project. It’s okay. I can’t understand half of what he’s singing, so I read the lyrics. I still don’t understand, but he seems excited. Nike is a brand, so that should go. Mommy does not rhyme with Yummy.
It does if you pronounce it as “mummy”.
Luckily, I only understand half of what he’s singing, but that’s already more than enough to know that “My favourite schoolgirl” is exactly as disturbing as it sounds. What is going on here?
This man is an English teacher, according to his biography, so… yeah.
His other songs are called Love Me Like My Daughter and I Love Girls of 13 Year Old. No kidding, look it up! He either is or gives his all to be perceived as a p***phile. Either way, Teleradio Molova is slowly becoming an accomplice by giving his sick songs a platform. One thing is having something recorded on a cellohone, someone forgetting their lyrics, or butchering English. It’s musically poor, but I can laugh at it. It can pass as entertainment. But this twisted songs from Bogibnov… they are actual disgusting garbage, and I’d rather never see him again… Read more »
Honestly? That’s a little unsettling. And this guy’s a teacher? With access to kids?
How can a song “audition”?
Moldova seems to love being the meme of ESC XD
Oh of course that little weirdo Sasha Bognibov shows up with a song called ‘My Favourite Schoolgirl’ :/
Reminds me of that song about loving you like my/a daughter.
WTF
Osoianu Sisters sound nice
The only listenable one is deja vu!
You know it’s a great selection when there’s one or two listenable songs out of 33 lol. This is baaad. But hey it’s Moldova. The only song that I found remotely interesting is Aliona Moon’s. Great, modern sound with some traditional elements. It would be so epic with a little revamp and an interesting staging.
No Misscatylove? They just lost their chance for a first victory.
Lola with Temperatura is fun.I still havent listen to all song in full, but this is not a bad selection at all. Lots of diversity too.
Moldova once again fully living up to their meme heritage, with titles like The Game of the Moldavian Nation; Skueeze Paradise; Damn and down; Bade, badi?or, badi??; Why You Play It Cool; Forest Green Forest; Yummy Mommy; Letter to the Country; Ricky’s Una rosa rossa, and last, but not least, the highly-anticipated return of the one and only Sasha Bognibov with “My Favorite Schoolgirl”.
Jail awaits you, Sasha Bognibov
The broadcaster should know much better by now than to indulge that guy, he should have never been allowed to return with something like that.
There’s a typo with the date. It’s a Tuesday, not a Wednesday