By Irina Nenasheva
In all, 125 entrants from 14 countries took part in the semi-finals, including three finalists from the Belarusian selection round: Yuzary (Yuri Navrotsky), Yevgeny Litvinkovich and Shalom Band. The jury chose those going through to Latvian Jurmala; Belarus is to be represented by Yuri Navrotsky in the New Wave-2011 finals.
Yuri, 20, was born in Minsk to a family of musicians and now studies at St. Petersburg’s State University of Culture and Arts. He has sung at St. Petersburg’s Music Hall and has gypsy roots (on his father’s side). Initially, his parents planned to name him Yuzary but changed their minds, preferring the more familiar name of Yuri. However, the young singer uses Yuzary as his stage name. He was among the backing vocalists accompanying Anastasia Vinnikova during her Eurovision-2011 International Song Contest performance.
The New Wave-2011 finals are to take place in Jurmala in late July. Over six evenings, world acknowledged masters of pop culture will join young performers on the stage of Dzintari Concert Hall. This year, the prize fund of the contest is 100,000 Euros, with half of this sum awarded to the winner.
