[WATCH] Gianluca Cilia, 9, to represent Malta in Junior Eurovision

Nine-year-old Gianluca Cilia won the festival with a powerful rendition of the Italian ballad 'Perdere l'amore'  

The next Joseph Calleja? Gianluca Cilia belts out 'Perdere l'amore' at Junior Eurovision festival
The next Joseph Calleja? Gianluca Cilia belts out 'Perdere l'amore' at Junior Eurovision festival

 

Nine-year-old Gianluca Cilia will represent Malta in this year’s Junior Eurovision Song Contest with an Italian ballad.

Dressed in a suit, the child singer belted out a cover of Massimo Ranieri’s classic ‘Perdere l’amore’ (Losing love) with a powerful voice that belied his young years.

Gianluca was the youngest participant in this year’s festival and will now represent Malta in Georgia in November, where he will be hoping to emulate the recent victories of Gaia Cauchi and Destiny Chukunyere. The song he will be performing on the night will be chosen at a later stage.

Veronica Rotin finished second on Saturday night's festival, while Rianne Demicoli finished third.

Gianluca started singing at the age of six, and his first music festival was the ‘Oltreoceano’ in Palermo where he placed first. A year later, he was chosen to represent Malta in an international singing festival in Romania where he placed third with an original song by the name of ‘Mamma Io canto per te’. In the same year, he took part in the first edition of ‘Arpeggio’ – an international singing festival in Malta -where he was the Grand Prix winner.