University of Westminster Music Production, Performance and Enterprise BA alumnus Silvester Belt has been announced as Lithuania’s hope to win the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest.
Silvestras Belte, the 26-year-old Lithuanian singer who goes by the stage name Silvester Belt, took to the stage at the National Eurovision Selection Competition in Lithuania to compete to represent his country in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. He performed his song Luktelk, translated in English as Wait, and won over the audience and judges.
The six-week national competition took place throughout January and February, with Belt crowned the winner on 17 February. The competition consisted of 40 acts who took part in five semi-finals, with eight songs competing in each. The acts were then voted on by a jury and the public, with a top three announced as finalists. Each finalist then performed again and the final vote was given to the Lithuanian viewers.
Belt has released eight singles since he graduated from the Music Production, Performance and Enterprise BA course at Westminster in 2017. His Eurovision song Luktelk is an upbeat, ethereal, techno pop ballad that explores longing, uncertainty and the passage of time. It expresses the feelings of loneliness and the desire of connection.
Adrian York, Senior Lecturer in Commercial Music Performance and Belt’s former tutor, said: “As his tutor it was a real pleasure to help Silvestras to develop his expertise in singing, songwriting, stagecraft and music production. He is an intelligent and talented artist who worked hard to push himself forward and his present success is testament both to his efforts he made and to the world-leading artist development process that we have at the University of Westminster.”
Through exploring the issues of loneliness and uncertainty his song contributes toward the Good Health and Well-being (3) development goal of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which were adopted by the University of Westminster to help make the University a more sustainable, responsible and inclusive place to live, work and study.
The Eurovision Song Contest final will take place in Sweden on 11 May.
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