Switzerland: Sacha Jean-Baptiste as creative director for Gjon's Tears' staging

Switzerland: Sacha Jean-Baptiste as creative director for Gjon's Tears' staging
Tuesday, 23 March 2021

  • The Swiss national broadcaster, SRF, has revealed that Sacha Jean-Baptiste will be the creative director for Gjon's Tears' staging in Rotterdam. 

     

    SRF has announced that Sacha Jean-Baptiste will responsible for the staging of the Swiss Eurovision 2021 entry that Gjon's Tears will be delivering on Rottrerdam Ahoy's stage next May. 

     

    The experienced female director has been collaborating with the country's hopeful since last year. However according to the SRF post on twitter the two of them are working in a new staging idea without revealing further details. 

    This year Sacha is responsible for the staging in three more countries besides Switzerland. Namely, the staging of the Swedish, Georgian and Albanian entry will be arranged under Sacha's guidance. 

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    About Sacha Jean-Baptiste

    Sacha is no stranger to the Eurovision family, as she has contributed to the staging of 17 entries of seven countries the last ten years. Some the stagings she had created and stand out were, Loreen's performance of "Euphoria" in ESC 2012 for Sweden  which won the competition, Kristian Kostov‘s Beautiful mess for Bulgaria which came 2nd in Eurovision 2017 and of course the explosive performance of Eleni Foureira's "Fuego" for Cyprus in Eurovision 2018. In 2019 she had taken care of the Luca Hanni's staging in Tel Aviv , which finished in the honordable 4th placing.

     

    The Swiss Eurovision 2021 entry

    Just two weeks ago the country's ESC 2021 hopeful  Gjon’s Tears released his entry, the ballad song Tout l' Univers. The song has been penned by Gjon’s Tears himself joined by songwriters Wouter Hardy, Nina Sampermans and Xavier Michel within the framwork of a song-writing camp. Wouter Hardy is also the producer. The song combines Gjon’s well defined tone of voice with a choir, piano and strings, joined by a modern beat, while it's music video takes us to a spirtual universal journey highlighting the notions of life and death through an existensial approach. 

     

    A few word for Gjon's Tears

    Gjon Muharremaj, also known professionally as Gjon’s Tears, is a Swiss singer and songwriter of Kosovo-Albanian descent. Gjon Muharremaj was born to a Kosovo-Albanian father and an Albanian mother from Tirana. In 2010, he competed in the first season of the talent competition Albanians Got Talent. In 2019, he auditioned for the eight season of The Voice of France and reached the semi-finals.

    The Swiss act was selected for Eurovision 2020, through an internal selection format based on a 21 member international jury and a 100 membered audience panel. The International jury cosnsited of Ruth Lorenzo (Spain 2014)  Tinkara Kovač (Slovenia 2014), Ovidiu Jacobsen (Romania 2010&2014),Helga Möller (member of Icytrio , Iceland 1986)  and Alexey Gross (3 times national finalist in Belarus). In Rotterdam he was set to perform his song  Répondez-moi. 

    The song was written by Xavier Michel, Alizé Oswald and Jeroen Swinnen together with the artist Gjon Muharremaj. Jeroen Swinnen previously worked with Tom Dice on his Eurovision 2010 entry “Me and My Guitar”: “Répondez-moi” was the first Swiss song to be sung in French for 10 years.

    Now Gjon's Tear will have the chance to complete his Eurovision jounrey in Rotterdam next May with his new entry “Tout l’univers”.

     

    Switzerland in Eurovision 

    Switzerland made its debut in the first  Eurovision Song Contest back in 1956 and won the same year with Lys Assia. It was not until 1988  when the country was crowned winner for the 2nd time with Celine Dion leaving in second place behind the United Kingdom only by a narrow margin of 1 point.

    In 2018 reached its 4th year of non qualifying results with the duo Zibbz and their song Stones. However in 2019 Luca Hänni made the difference for Switzerland as his entry “She Got me” not only managed to reach the grand final but achieved a 4th placing, the best result since 1993.

    Last year's Gjon's Tears was set to represent the country with “Répondez-moi” but saw his Eurovision journey stay finish early as the contest was cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic.  

     

    News Source/Image: SRF