Eden Alene will sing “Set Me Free” when she represents Israel in the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest next May in Rotterdam.
The pop tune was written by Noam Zaltin, Ido Netzer, Amit Mordechai and Ron Carmi.
Alene, a 20-year-old Jerusalem resident of Ethiopian heritage, originally was chosen to perform in the 2020 contest, but that was scuttled due to the pandemic.
She was going to sing “Feker Libi” – Amharic for “My Beloved” – which was penned by Doron Medalie, the man behind Eurovision 2018 winner “Toy,” together with celebrated musician Idan Raichel.
“Set Me Free” was one of 200 songs submitted for consideration for the 2021 contest. Alene then performed nine of those songs on the KAN public broadcasting channel and viewers voted online for their favorites.
Israel has participated 42 times in Eurovision since debut in 1973 and has won the contest four times: 1978 (Izhar Cohen and the Alphabeta – “Abanibi”), 1979 (Milk and Honey – “Hallelujah”), 1998 (Dana International – “Diva”) and 2018 (Netta Barzilai – “Toy”).
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