Ahead of Eurovision 2025 in Basel, Swiss students are turning inspiration into performance by writing and performing original songs. Music workshops across the country are transforming classrooms into studios, offering children a once-in-a-lifetime creative experience.
Swiss schoolchildren are drawing inspiration from Eurovision and creating their own songs, to be performed before an audience of thousands in the build-up to this year's extravaganza in Basel.
"It's exciting to see that we're all going to sing together" on stage on the sidelines of the Eurovision Song Contest, said Tessa Cajani, a pupil at a middle school in Vernier in the Geneva suburbs. Like her, elementary and middle school students from 16 classes across Switzerland have been participating in music workshops, in partnership with Eurovision, coming up with their own tunes.
The songs will be performed at an outdoor concert on May 15 — two days before the Eurovision final — in Basel's central Barfüsserplatz, redubbed Eurovision Square. "It motivates me to come to school," said 13-year-old Cajani.
Anais Carre teaches music at the school in Vernier and is thrilled that two of its classes were chosen to take part in the project. When the children found out, "they were so happy, it was an explosion of joy," she said. "I put myself in the pupils' shoes and told myself that it's a fantastic experience for them to be able to create a song... to be really creative at school and to be in charge of a project."
The scheme is co-organized by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation — the Eurovision host broadcasters — and the SUISA national cooperative of music authors and publishers. During the workshops, professional musicians teach the pupils how to compose a song, from crafting the lyrics to getting the music to sound right. "If it lights a little spark in some of them, we have to do it," said Gaspard Sommer, a professional artist and musician who is guiding Carre's students.
'Memories of Summer'
Eurovision is one of the world's biggest annual live television shows. Basel is throwing on a week of public festivities around the main event. Switzerland won the right to host the 2025 edition thanks to vocalist Nemo's victory in Malmö, Sweden last year, with the song The Code.
The glitzy main event is being staged at Basel's St. Jakobshalle indoor arena. While the students won't be performing in front of millions of TV viewers, they will nonetheless still "have to sing on a stage before 6,000 people," explained Sommer. The top three songs will win a prize.
In the Vernier school's main hall one Wednesday morning in March, Tessa and her fellow pupils, seated on chairs or on the floor, sang over and over again the lyrics they had come up with in February: a song called Memories of Summer. The refrain was played repeatedly on a piano until the pupils figured out the melody, based around a chord sequence.
"We're trying to match the lyrics to the rhythm," said Pilar Beatriz Calatras Camero, 13. Suddenly, things break down and the piano stops: one of the verses doesn't scan properly. "We have to revise the lyrics," explained Carre. In a great hubbub, the children discuss in small groups, make suggestions — especially the girls — and gradually modify the French-language lyrics. "In a tank-top facing the fan" becomes "And in my tank-top facing the fan." "It's like improvisation. There's something a bit mysterious about it; you have to let go and dare to start singing," said Sommer.
'Champions League' of Songs
He then plays synthesizer sounds for the children. But it's almost lunchtime, and fatigue is setting in. It's tough to choose the electronic music that will replace the piano during the concert. But the will to sing is still there. "Singing doesn't stress me out at all; it just comes out," said 12-year-old Angelina Morisod. "It's a way of expressing myself. Ever since I was little, I've wanted to sing in front of lots of people. So this... is a bit of a dream come true."
She loves singing Celine Dion songs, especially Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi, the song with which the Canadian singer — competing for Switzerland — won the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest, setting her on the road to becoming an international megastar.
Lyandro Soares Dias, 13, is already imagining what it will be like on stage. He is looking forward to an "unforgettable" experience in Basel. "It's one of the biggest European competitions. It's like the Champions League, but with singing and music, and I've been watching it since I was little," he said. And "it would be truly incredible if we met some stars."
By Agnès PEDRERO / AFP
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