Montaigne keeps her distance to sing Technicolour at Eurovision
Australia is the only one of 39 participating countries not to perform in person in The Netherlands, after SBS decided not to send a Eurovision delegation due to a COVID risk assessment.
When the Eurovision Song Contest was cancelled in March last year for the first time in its 64-year history, Jessica Cerro felt an acute disappointment: her chance to represent Australia would have to wait.
Better known by her stage name Montaigne, the ARIA Award-winning Sydney pop singer-songwriter found a silver lining in that dark cloud: for the 2021 contest, Cerro enjoyed the luxury of an extra year to work on a flashy new song, Technicolour, which she debuted at the Sydney Mardi Gras in March.
“When I made Technicolour, I was much more interested in producing something that was situated in the arena of delight, as opposed to the sordid, the morbid, or just morose and sad,” said Cerro, 25.
“I was listening to a lot of hyper-pop and music that was very self-asserting. I wanted to make something a bit more like that, because all my life I’ve made music that is either self-deprecating or else despairing.”
Her powerful performance of the uplifting song before an estimated crowd of 36,000 at the Sydney Cricket Ground — which also formed her contest entry — was singularly impressive to overseas audiences, who had not seen mass gatherings in a year due to the pandemic.
Yet as the socially distanced Eurovision semi-finals begin on Wednesday in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, Cerro will be far from the action. Australia is the only one of 39 participating countries not to be represented in person, after SBS decided not to send a delegation due to a COVID risk assessment.
Instead, Cerro has recorded a new performance of Technicolour in Sydney, and from 5am on Wednesday she will be based at a television studio to interact with Eurovision voters, fans and press remotely.
Her complex, soaring vocal melody in Technicolour requires an extreme amount of focus to perform live.
“There’s a lot of notes, and a lot of switching between head and chest voice,” said Cerro. “It’s a very technical song to sing.”
As for the extraordinary ascending melody heard in the closing bars? “I have to make sure that I have left enough breath to get it,” she said with a laugh.
Montaigne’s performance in the Eurovision Song Contest semi-final will screen on SBS from 5am on Wednesday, while the top 26 countries voted into the final will perform next Sunday, May 23.
Australia joined the glitzy pop contest in 2015, when Guy Sebastian flew the national flag and placed fifth. Dami Im came second in 2016, while Kate Miller-Heidke ranked ninth in 2019.
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