MaltaMedia.com

Chiara has qualified for the final of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest singing What If We by Gregory Bilsen and Marc Paelinck. This is the first time that Malta’s entry has made it through the semifinal round to a Eurovision final since 2006.

Ten countries were voted from semifinal 1 into this year’s Eurovision final. The nine other countries joining Malta are Turkey, Sweden, Israel, Finland, Portugal, Romania, Armenia, Iceland, and Bosnia & Herzegovina.

Contestants from 18 countries took part in Tuesday evening’s semifinal, presented by Russian national public broadcaster Channel 1 in collaboration with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The show started at 21:00 CEST hosted by London-based model Natalia Vodyanova and Russian TV-presenter Andrey Malakhov in English and French. Maltese television viewers heard a Maltese commentary by Valerie Vella. Chiara appeared on stage just after 22:10 CEST.

The 15-minute televoting round was officially opened at 22:20 CEST by the show hosts. At the end of the voting round, the Alexandrov Ensemble Red Army Choir took to the stage singing several traditional Russian songs. Towards the end of their performance, they were joined by Russian pop duo t.A.T.u. and together they performed the hit song Not Gonna Get Us.

Towards the end of the show 10 envelopes with the country names of the qualifying songs were opened randomly placing each act in the running order for Saturday’s final along with the 5 prequalified entries (Russia, France, Germany, Spain, UK) and the ten qualifying countries from the second semi-final due on Thursday.

The Maltese delegation appeared elated after the semifinal result was announced. Chiara has been promising to deliver Malta back to the Eurovision final since she announced her intentions to return to the contest for her third attempt to bring the contest for her home country.

Rehearsals for the final start at 15:00 CEST on Friday.

For full coverage and other information go to EurovisionMalta.com.

See also Toni Sant’s Blog for his live reports from Moscow throughout this week, including special audio reports in collaboration with SBS Radio.