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Gaitana joined by a crowd on stage

Presenting this year's Eurovision artists. Ukraine is the next one in line.

The jury rather than the televoting audience decided that Gaitana will represent the country with a very strong record of appealing Eurovision songs. 

Ukraine is going to be represented in Ukraine by Gaitana. She will sing Be My Guest. the televoters placed her second, but the jury assured her winning position.

With Ukraine, Hungary, Georgia and Slovenia added a total of ten countries have now been confirmed for Amsterdam in Concert. More to follow.

By now, Eurovision In Concert has become a tradition, for the fourth time Amsterdam is inviting all the Eurovision acts of this year over to give a preview of their song for Baku. previously we could allready announce the six first countries, today we can add four more. Gaitana, Eva Boto, Anri Jokhadze and Compact Disco will show us what they can in Amsterdam on 21 April. More information here.

++ Line up Spain complete ++  Amnesty International critical about Azerbaijan ++ Talking to Charlotte tonight! ++ ..

There is the general prejudice that non-white artists don't get too many votes from eastern European countries. Recent examples are Norway's entry last year and the Netherlands in 2007. This year Ukraine almost seems to have made a statement against this prejudice, selecting Gaitana to represent the country in Baku. Gaitana is partly Congolese but she was born and raised in Ukraine. Apparently this now hasn't turned out to be accepted generally in the country anyway. In Ukrainian press Yuriy Syrotyuk, of the Svoboda party, said that "Gaitana is not an organic representative of the Ukrainian culture." "Eurovision is our chance to promote Ukraine," "We need to show our originality," he told Kyiv Post on Feb. 21. Such a pity!