Jazz for two

The winners of Junior Eurovision are twins from Kursk

On Saturday, 9-year-old twin sisters from Kursk Masha and Nastya Tolmacheva became winners of the international competition for children's song performers Eurovision 2006 in Bucharest. The fans were somewhat nervous when, according to the results of the draw, it turned out that the girls would have to compete last, number 16, but the excitement did not affect the twins in any way: their duet was inimitable. They finished, as they say, “with a big lead” - the championship became obvious even when telephone and SMS voting was going on, by which, according to the rules, viewers determined the winners of Eurovision 2006 live. The little-known Tolmachev sisters did what the much-hyped Dima Bilan, on whom such hopes were pinned before the “adult” Eurovision, failed.

Junior Eurovision is being held for the fourth time. And this year, representatives of 15 countries took part in the competition - Belarus, Belgium, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Malta, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, Croatia, Sweden. According to the conditions, participants must be no younger than eight and no older than 15 years old. Each song was allotted 2 minutes. 30 sec. up to 2 min. 45 seconds, no more, no less. And the main condition: the children themselves had to take part in composing their own competitive musical composition. Twins from the Russian outback, one of the youngest participants, sang jazz. The Internet resource junioreurovision.narod.ru published the text of the winning song “Spring Jazz,” which the girls composed together with their musician parents and teacher.

They say that after the semi-final in Moscow this summer, a simple song about twins walking along a crowded street in the sun and singing spring jazz was sung by all the spectators. The audience at the final concert in Romania also liked the twins in the same way. This song received the most votes on Saturday. Second place was taken by 10-year-old Andrei Kunets from Belarus with the song “New Day”, by the way, in Russian. Third place went to 14-year-old Molly Sanden from Sweden, who performed the musical composition “I wish you only the best.” The hosts of the competition, a quartet from Romania, received only fourth place.

Now everyone wants to know more about little twins. But not much is known about the girls to the general public - they are from Kursk, they study vocals in the Cricket pop singing studio at the regional Palace of Pioneers under the guidance of teacher Antonina Perfileva. They study in the studio from the age of six, but they sing from the age of four; they are called, of course, “Kursk nightingales.” In the summer, after success in the semi-finals, at the first press conference in their lives, the girls said that they did not dream of a pop career, but wanted to become doctors. Masha is a pediatrician, and Nastya is a surgeon. However, after the announcement of the results of the final and victory in Junior Eurovision, when asked by an ITAR-TASS correspondent about what they would like to do next, they answered that they wanted to become “cool artists.”

Unlike the “adult” Eurovision, when the winning country receives the right to host it next year, the child winners do not provide their homeland with such a privilege. The schedule of children's competitions is known in advance, and the next one, the fifth one, will take place in the Netherlands. However, Masha and Nastya Tolmachev will still go there - this time as guests of honor.

Irina BELASHEVA