This year’s Eurovision Song Contest features not one but two songs of Dutch origin. Songwriter Elke Tiel co-wrote the Cypriot entry Liar by singer Silia Kapsis. The 28-year-old hopes to one day be able to provide the Dutch entry, she told ANP.
Tiel was active as a professional tennis player until ten years ago, but eventually chose a career in music. “The main reason was because as a tennis player you simply have a very lonely and busy existence. So I made the choice to quit quite early.” Tiel wrote her first songs as a teenager and then started performing. “That’s how my love for music started. I thought: ‘hey, I can just make money with it’.” Last year she scored her first big hit when Roxy Dekker’s Anne-Fleur Vakantie, written by her, stormed the charts.
The door to the Eurovision Song Contest opened earlier: Tiel is the regular producer of Stefania, which came out for Greece in 2021. In the studio she met Dimitris Kontopoulos. “At first he thought I was the cleaning lady. He never expected that I was the producer,” she laughs. The Greek was charmed by Tiel’s work and flew her over several times to write together. The song Liar was released there.
Tiel has now got a taste for the Eurovision Song Contest. “I have been trying to write the Dutch entry for two years. Last year we came far, but we just didn’t make it. And this year they have a really excellent entry with Joost, period. But the goal is to one day write the Dutch entry otherwise I’ll see if I can get myself into another country.”
Tiel mentions, among others, the Dutchman Wouter Hardy, who, after his success with Arcade for Duncan Laurence, also provided entries for Switzerland and Estonia. But Kontopoulos is also active almost every year in the Eurovision Song Contest for different countries. “If we finish in the first fifteen, it will hopefully attract the attention of countries such as Moldova and Albania. They would be looking at such a record,” she thinks.
The Dutch woman therefore has confidence that Cyprus will reach the final. “We just have a pretty good mainstream song and a good act: nothing too crazy, not too much puppetry. There just has to be a good hook and a good performance. We may not stand out very much, but because it’s just ‘steady ‘ I think that top 15 is feasible. Who is my personal favorite? I can only say that I think the Netherlands is really strong I would bet on France or the Netherlands.”
Cyprus will play in the first semi-final next Tuesday. The Dutch public cannot vote because Joost is in the second preliminary round and only participating countries have a vote.
