The official music video for “Empires” by Alicja Szemplińska has been released today.
The music video for Poland’s entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 has been released today. The video was directed by Dawid Ziemba and produced by Artur Strączek and Kuba Kapała. The video stars Alicja Szemplińska and tells the story of “Empires”.
The song was written and composed by Patryk Kumór, Dominic Buczkowski-Wojtaszek, Frazer Mac and Laurell Barker. Laurell has written several previous Eurovision entries, including “She Got Me” (Switzerland 2019) and “Bigger Than Us” (United Kingdom 2019).
Who is Alicja Szemplińska?
Alicja Szemplińska was born on April 29 2002 in Ciechanów in north-central Poland. As a child, she took singing lessons at a local community centre and sang in a church choir. At the age of 12, she started taking professional singing lessons.
She first came to fame after winning the TVP2 series Hit, Hit, Hurra! and got to attend vocal lessons with Seth Riggs, Michael Jackson’s vocal coach, as part of her prize. She later won the tenth series of The Voice of Poland in 2019. Shortly after winning, she released her debut single “Prawie my” (Almost us).
Poland debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994 alongside a number of other Eastern European countries. Their debut year saw their best result to date, as Edyta Gorniak finished in 2nd place with her song “To nie ja!”. Following this, Poland failed to repeat this initial success, managing a top 10 placing on only one other occasion during their initial 1994-2011 run in the contest. In 2012, following a string of non-qualifications, Poland withdrew from the contest due to financial difficulties. Since their return in 2014, they have been considerably more successful in the contest, having qualified for the final for every year up to 2017.
