This year, Malta will be represented at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2022 in Yerevan by Gaia Gambuzza with the song 'Diamonds in the Skies'.
You can find details on the entry, the artist, ranking and comments from the Aussievision team and history of Malta at Junior Eurovision below.
The artist: Gaia Gambuzza
Gaia is 13 years old and lives in Mosta, a small city in the northern half of the island of Malta.
She has loved singing and music since a very young age and is a big fan of the revival of 80s synths in music, citing The Weeknd and Dua Lipa as musical influences. In the future, she intends to become a speech pathologist, reflecting her keen interest in the voice and vocal performance.
When she's not performing up a storm on the stage, Gaia can be found playing with her dog, Joy the Shih Tzu.
The song: 'Diamonds in the Skies'
At Malta's national final, Malta Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2022, Gaia beat out 15 other hopeful youngsters to get the ticket to Yerevan in December. The winner of Malta JESC 2022 was selected by a combination of jury (75%) and public vote (25%).
Her song, 'Diamonds in the Skies', is a synth-heavy pop track which evokes imagery of travelling through outer space. At the national final, Gaia distinguished herself with some polished, high energy choreography which we can likely expect to see again in December.
Aussievision team ranking
The Aussievision team have voted for their top 10 favourite Junior Eurovision 2022 songs from 12 points to 1 point.
They have ranked Malta as their 10th favourite song from this years Junior Eurovision!
'Diamonds in the Skies' got 8 points from Fleur and 7 points from Josh and Emma.
Comments from the Aussievision team
"The 80s Europop element is what drew me to this. The lyrics are very basic but this is Junior Eurovision - I prefer Junior Eurovision songs to cater to its demographic. We don’t need every song to be about saving the environment or female empowerment. Gaia has a lovely voice although she doesn’t get to test her vocal range here. I’m expecting this to finish mid-range. The music video will definitely help with public votes." ~ Fleur
"Malta have gives us another catchy number with this dance bop! Looking forward to how they translate this to the live stage for Junior Eurovision." ~ Kyriakos
Malta at Junior Eurovision
Malta is one of the mainstay countries at Junior Eurovision, having missed only two contests since the program's launch in 2003.
They proved to be formidable competition in the early 2010s, coming in the top six every year from 2013 to 2018 bar one. During this period, they also won the contest twice, with Gaia Cauchi's 'The Start' in 2013 and Destiny Chukunyere's 'Not My Soul' in 2015. Destiny, of course, would later return to represent Malta at the main Eurovision event in 2021, where she came 7th with her song 'Je me casse'.
While Malta's performance at Junior Eurovision in recent years has struggled to match their early strength, they have performed respectably in the last two Contests, coming eighth in 2020 and 12th in 2021, with Ike and Kaya's duet 'My Home'.
Gaia will surely be hoping to keep up the strong performance!
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