On July 15, Vitebsk / Diana Kurilo - BELTA /. Evgeny Slavich, the representative of Belarus at the international pop song performers contest "Vitebsk-2012", has entered the top five after the first stage of the competition, BELTA correspondent reports. On the first day of the competition, July 14, young talents performed a song in their native language at the Summer Amphitheatre stage, accompanied by a minus-one backing track. Evgeny Slavich sang "Berega", a piece by Belarusian authors in Russian. His performance was rated 88 out of a possible 110 points by the competent jury, chaired by composer Maxim Dunaevsky. The leaders of the first day were Boban Mojsoski from Macedonia and Samantha Tina from Latvia. Both performers scored 93 points. They were followed by Federica Marinaria from Italy and Galina Konakh from Ukraine, who received 91 points each. Russian performer Anastasia scored 81 points. The blonde Siberian singer topped the second ten contestants. This time, the Vitebsk audience agreed with the jury in their assessment of most contestants. However, everyone noticed the chairman's strict attitude towards the emerging artists. The maestro was frugal with high marks, awarding eights to only four performers out of twenty. Backstage, the BELTA correspondent asked Maxim Dunaevsky about his impressions of the contestants and heard in response: "I liked everyone, but not everyone performed equally well." Today will either clarify everything (or perhaps add even more intrigue). In the evening, at the Summer Amphitheatre, accompanied by the National Concert Orchestra of Belarus under the direction of maestro Mikhail Finberg, the contestants will perform a pop song by a composer from a Slavic country in one of the Slavic languages. This year, 20 contestants from 20 countries are participating in the competition. Based on the results of the two days, prizes and awards will be presented to the participants. The laureates of the competition will be awarded special "Lyre" prizes and diplomas of the holder of the corresponding prize. The Grand Prix winner will receive $15,000, the 1st prize winner - $9,000, the 2nd prize winner - $6,000, and the 3rd prize winner - $3,000. The jury has the right not to award the Grand Prix, and such cases have occurred in the more than 20-year history of the competition, so the intrigue will remain until the awards ceremony scheduled for July 16. -0-

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