Festival da Canção

Festival da Canção
Genre	Pop music etc.
Location(s)	Portugal
Years active	1964–present
Founded by	Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP)
Website
Festival da Canção Official Site

Festival da Canção or Festival RTP da Canção is the name given to the national festival, produced and broadcast by Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP) to choose the Portuguese entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. It was first held in 1964.

History

Like most pop festivals in isolated countries, it was a very important event for the still incipient music industry of the 60's and 70's. Left wing composers and writers would try to squeeze subversive lyrics in the contest, with great effect. After the 1974 revolution, incidentally code-triggered by that year's winner being played on national radio, Portugal became increasingly open to foreign culture, thus deeming the Festival as a lesser musical event, dominated by below standard pop songs with little or no impact in the industry, although remaining a high audience TV show.

The 90's saw a recovery of the contests image, then considered a viable means for a new singer to start a career. Internationally acclaimed Portuguese singers Dulce Pontes and Sara Tavares made their debut in the 91 and 94 editions respectively. Many other unknown performers like Lucia Moniz and Anabela leaped to national stardom after taking the RTP trophy.

After reaching an all-time high 6th place in the 1996 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, the festival steadily declined from then on. In 2000, the winner Liana did not participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2000, as Portugal had for the first time been relegated due to consecutive poor showings. In 2002 the Festival da Canção wasn't organized, contradicting the tradition of staging a Festival da Canção even without participating in that year's Eurovision Song Contest, as happened in 2000 and 1970. Since 2001, the festival saw consecutive changes of format. 2005 saw RTP commissioning a song for Eurovision, rather than organizing some kind of competition.

Since 2006 RTP seemingly settled for a traditional multi-singer, multi-composer competitive format, claiming the memory of older contests and songs. Producers have since been invited to come up with songs, lyrics and singers, and the 2007 result with Sabrina almost making it to the Eurovision final, gave RTP the necessary confidence boost to maintain the current format. In 2009 an open call for songs was held by RTP, abolishing the invited producers method, with online voting deciding the qualifiers to the televised final from a list of 24 songs, with 12 competing in the live contest.

More changes to the format of the contest were made in 2010. Two semi-finals and a final are now held to select the winner. Foreign composers were once again allowed to compete, but performers must still be Portuguese and all songs must still be sung in Portuguese.^[1]

Hosts

Winners

See also

• Portugal in the Eurovision Song Contest
• List of historic rock festivals

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Festival da Canção.

• Festival da Canção Official Site

Portugal in the Eurovision Song Contest
Participation 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Artists 1960s António Calvário Simone de Oliveira Madalena Iglésias Eduardo Nascimento Carlos Mendes Simone de Oliveira 1970s 1970 Tonicha Carlos Mendes Fernando Tordo Paulo de Carvalho Duarte Mendes Carlos do Carmo Os Amigos Gemini Manuela Bravo 1980s José Cid Carlos Paião Doce Armando Gama Maria Guinot Adelaide Ferreira Dora Nevada Dora Da Vinci 1990s Nucha Dulce Pontes Dina Anabela Sara Tavares Tó Cruz Lúcia Moniz Célia Lawson Alma Lusa Rui Bandeira 2000s 2000 MTM 2002 Rita Guerra Sofia Vitória 2B Nonstop Sabrina Vânia Fernandes Flor-de-Lis 2010s Filipa Azevedo Homens da Luta Filipa Sousa 2013 Suzy Leonor Andrade
Songs 1960s "Oração" "Sol de inverno" "Ele e ela" "O vento mudou" "Verão" "Desfolhada portuguesa" 1970s 1970 "Menina do alto da serra" "A festa da vida" "Tourada" "E depois do adeus" "Madrugada" "Uma flor de verde pinho" "Portugal no coração" "Dai li dou" "Sobe, sobe, balão sobe" 1980s "Um grande, grande amor" "Playback" "Bem bom" "Esta balada que te dou" "Silêncio e tanta gente" "Penso em ti, eu sei" "Não sejas mau para mim" "Neste barco à vela" "Voltarei" "Conquistador" 1990s "Há sempre alguém" "Lusitana paixão" "Amor d'água fresca" "A cidade (até ser dia)" "Chamar a música" "Baunilha e chocolate" "O meu coração não tem cor" "Antes do adeus" "Se eu te pudesse abraçar" "Como tudo começou" 2000s 2000 "Só sei ser feliz assim" 2002 "Deixa-me sonhar (só mais uma vez)" "Foi magia" "Amar" "Coisas de nada (Gonna Make You Dance)" "Dança comigo (Vem ser feliz)" "Senhora do mar (Negras águas)" "Todas as ruas do amor" 2010s "Há dias assim" "A luta é alegria" "Vida minha" 2013 "Quero ser tua" "Há um mar que nos separa"
(Note: Entries scored out are when Portugal did not compete)