The 65th Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Rotterdam, The Netherlands in May 2021, and the song will be released and published by BMG, with BBC Studios producing the BBC’s coverage of the biggest and most watched song competition in the world.

Embers was co-written by James Newman, Conor Blake, Danny Shah, Tom Hollings, Samuel Brennan, some of the UK’s most sought-after writers and producers who between them have amassed over four billion streams.

James Newman is a hugely successful Brit Award-winning and Grammy-nominated songwriter. James won a Brit for British Single Of The Year for Waiting All Night, performed by Rudimental and Ella Eyre. He has also written certified platinum hit singles Lay It All On Me, performed by Rudimental ft Ed Sheeran; Blame, performed by Calvin Harris ft. John Newman; and Therapy, performed by Armin Van Buuren and James Newman.

Last year James co-wrote My Last Breath with acclaimed British songwriters Ed Drewett, Iain James and Adam Argyle, which was the song entered by the UK in last year’s competition before it was postponed. James released his debut EP The Things We Do in summer 2020 and ended the year with another new collaboration with Armin Van Buuren, Slow Lane. As well as UK success, James has also been Grammy nominated twice, co-writing Coping from Toni Braxton’s Grammy nominated album Sex & Cigarettes, and Let ‘Em Talk from Kesha’s Grammy-nominated album Rainbow.

Conor Blake is a Grammy-nominated songwriter. His most notable co-writes are with Meduza and Goodboys. He co-wrote the Platinum selling single Lose Control for Meduza, Goodboys and Becky Hill and the recent Top 5 single Paradise for Meduza featuring Dermot Kennedy. His biggest success came with the 2019 Meduza featuring Goodboys track Piece Of Your Heart. The song was a huge worldwide hit selling multi-platinum in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Italy, Ireland, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland and the UK.

Danny Shah is a multi-platinum songwriter / singer / multi-instrumentalist / producer with releases including four UK Number Ones with The Vamps and Kylie Minogue. Danny has also written for David Guetta, Sigala, HRVY, The Him, The Shires, Sam Feldt, Gnash, Sigma, The Vamps, Now United to name a few.

Tom Hollings and Samuel Brennan are writers who have seen their songs surpass over 250 million steams in the last 18 months. They have worked with Melanie C, Zak Abel, and 220Kid amongst many others.

Jerry Reeve and Tom Denning will oversee the creative direction for the staging of the song at Eurovision in Rotterdam. They have created and choreographed for some of the world’s top music artists including John Legend, the Jonas Brothers and Taylor Swift.

The music video for Embers comes from award winning filmmaker Charlie Lightening. Lightening directed the documentary Liam Gallagher: As It Was. He is best known for his work with Paul McCartney, Louis Tomlinson, Jamiroquai and Liam Gallagher.

James Newman says: “I wanted to write an upbeat and positive song that people could have a party to, it’s about the spark between people who love each other. Just because you don’t see the people you care about all the time, doesn’t mean that spark isn’t there.”

The Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final will take place on Saturday 22 May in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and will be broadcast live on BBC One with commentary by Graham Norton; and live on BBC Radio 2 with commentary from Ken Bruce. Ken Bruce will be also be previewing Eurovision on his Radio 2 show from 9.30am-12 noon on Friday 21 May. The semi-finals will be held on Tuesday 18 and Thursday 20 May, broadcast live on BBC Four.

The BBC’s Eurovision coverage is a BBC Studios production, commissioned by Jo Wallace, Acting-Controller of Entertainment. The Executive Producer and Head Of Delegation is Andrew Cartmell, and the series producer and Assistant Head of Delegation is Lee Smithurst. Suzy Lamb is the MD for BBC Studios Entertainment and Music and Mel Balac is the Creative Director. The Commissioning Editor for the BBC is Rachel Ashdown.

Notes to Editors

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Following a process in 2019 in which BBC Studios approached a number of record labels to pitch, it was clear that BMG shared the BBC and BBC Studios’ vision of selecting a song with broad international appeal and securing an artist who embodies the spirit and values of the Eurovision Song Contest.

As one of the Big Five countries (United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, France, Italy), the United Kingdom does not have to qualify from the semi-final stage of the competition and will gain automatic access to the Saturday Grand Final. The Netherlands, as the incumbent champion, will also not need to qualify from the semi-final stage and will gain automatic entry to the Grand Final.

BMG’s proven track record in worldwide pop hits includes publishing songs such as Someone You Love (Lewis Capaldi), Don’t Call Me Up (Mabel), Shotgun (George Ezra) and I’ll Be There (Jess Glynne), and also masterminding Kylie Minogue’s #1 album Disco and Steps’s UK #2 What The Future Holds. No strangers to Eurovision, BMG published the 2015 winning entry for Sweden, Heroes performed by Måns Zelmerlöw and signed Eurovision winner Netta following her win for Israel in 2018.

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