RTS, the French language broadcaster in Switzerland, is set to participate in the Eurovision Choir of the Year for the first time.

RTS has revealed today that they are set to debut in Eurovision Choir of the Year 2019. The French language broadcaster has revealed that their participant for the competition in Gothenburg, Sweden on August 3 will be selected by a new television show ‘Chorus’.

Chorus will be held over three shows featuring 12 choirs from across French speaking Switzerland. Jonas Schneiter will host the show, with the choirs being judged by Alizé Oswald d’Aliose and Marc Aymon. Chorus begins this weekend with the first six choirs competing for three places in the final on December 1. The choirs competing this weekend are:

Chœur de mon cœur (Estavayer-le-lac)

The Postiche (Lausanne)

Les Six Fleurs (Saillon)

One Step (Lausanne)

Les Califrenzies (Vésenaz)

S.C.A.T. (Neuchâtel)

The choirs competing on November 24 in the second semi-final are:

Rocking Chair (La Chaux-de-Fonds)

Voix-là (Geneva)

Chœur à corps (Vevey)

GVO – Groupe vocal Openstage (Monthey)

Cake O’Phonie (Fribourg)

Solstice (Echallens)

The qualifiers and winner of the show will be selected by 50% jury voting and 50% public televote. Each program will last 2 hours and 20 minutes and will be broadcast live from the RTS Studios in Geneva.

To date the only nations to have confirmed their participation are;

Belgium – RTBF

Romania – TVR

Switzerland – RTS

Wales – S4C

Eurovision Choir of the Year 2017 was won by Carmen Manet from Slovenia. The choir performed two pieces during their six minutes on stage and beat off competition from eight other choirs from across Europe. Wales finished second in the final, while the host nation of Latvia finished third. The contest was broadcast live in ten countries across Europe and across the world online.

Source: Eurovision FR