This weekend, Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) released Georgia’s official entry for Junior Eurovision 2023, Anastasia & Ranina’s “Over The Sky.”
Anastasia Vasadze won the 2023 season of Ranina, the children’s talent show that GPB has been using to select its Junior Eurovision artists since 2018. She is being supported by Nikoloz Kharati and Oto Bazerashvili, both of whom were finalists in the 2022 season of Ranina.
This is the first time a group will represent Georgia in the Ranina era, even though other Ranina contestants have served as backing singers in the past. A month ago, GPB announced that it had internally selected Kharati and Bazerashvili to form Anastasia & Ranina with Vasadze as the lead singer.
This year’s entry also sees Georgia’s usual and three-time JESC winning songwriter Giorgi Kukhianidze taking a break from Junior Eurovision, though he did co-write “Echo” with Georgia’s Eurovision 2023 entrant Iru Khechanovi. They did not qualify for the Grand Final in Liverpool, United Kingdom, placing 12th in Semi-Final 2 with 33 points.
“Over The Sky” is written by Mebo Nutsubidze and Betkho. Betkho produced the track. Nutsubidze is a Georgian musician, though he also held a position as Third Secretary in Georgia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and worked as a translator for the French embassy in Tbilisi, according to his LinkedIn page. He holds a Master’s degree in French from the University of Tbilisi, and also studied in Paris, France at Universite-Paris Sorbonne. Betkho is a Georgian composer and producer, having released several albums of ambient music.
Vasadze emerged as Ranina’s front runner from the start, earning the maximum points of 120 in her duet with Oto Bazerashvili across the four judging categories of vocals, performance, artistry and collaboration (a potential maximum of ten in each category from each of the evening’s three judges) in the season opener.
Ranina featured ten contestants performing a range of styles across various “tours.” Past highlights have the Shavnabada tour, where each contestant was asked to lead the famed Georgian choral group. Other “tours” included a kids’ movie or TV show theme, musicals, duets with Georgian Eurovision contestants or famous Georgian singers, and an acapella challenge with The Quintessence.
Ranina had four tours or rounds, with the kids scored by three judges every round. The five with the highest scores moved on to the Semi-Final, and the top three move on to The Grand Final.
Last year’s winner Mariam Bigvava posted Georgia’s best result since 2017 and in the Ranina era by coming in 3rd with “I Believe.” Georgia came in 2nd with the Jury vote, though 12th with the online vote.
Georgia holds the most Junior Eurovision wins, having taken the trophy in 2008, 2011, and 2016.
Are #YOU “over the moon” with Georgia’s entry at JESC 2023? Or do you think it will sink “under the sea” in Nice, France? Let us know in the comments below, on our social media, or in our forum and Discord server.
