#anna nova

Anna Nova is a singer from St. Petersburg who appears to give everything a try at least once. Ice skating, language learning, gymnastics, swimming, tennis and learning to play the flute. The last once appears to be the one that she stuck with the longest as she before the group Nano formed around her, she was a flautist in the folk music group Firebird.

However all that try-harding did get her noticed by producer Andrei Sergeev, who started an "Anna Nova project". A few songs followed including a song record to support Zenit St.Petersburg. Nano formed when four students from St. Petersburg University for Culture and Arts decided to be in a band. They and Anna were put together and the Nano project was born.

First stop Evrovidenie. The only issue was that Anna was a ballad singer, more classically inclined while Nano liked to rock out. No matter, the band's management whisked them off to Sweden and introduced them to some song-writers. In this case, the song-writers are only one-third Swedish technically with Fanny Bjurström contributing. The other two thirds and from the UK - David Clewett and Ivar Lisinski. It's not a prolific group with all of them only being responsible for one other national final song. David and Ivar wrote 1000 and One Nights in 2004.

The Swedish pop pedigree is apparent in Traitor, although it's presented with something of a distinctly Russian flourish. At its core, this rock song has a heart of pure pop. Anna is a bit miffed. Her partner has gone a little too far and now he's gotta go. To send the message she put on her favourite cyberpunk outfit and turned all her attitude dials up to eleven.

The song rockets along in a way that's involving, addictive and full of satisfying you've-just-been-dumped energy. However, in the year that Russia was hosting Eurovision, this wasn't exactly what the public were looking for. Nano and Traitor received only two percent of the televote, marooning them in joint eleventh place of the sixteen songs.

They would return for another go in 2010. A few singles were released and some small gigs organised, but that was about it for the band. As for Anna I'm unsure. Confusingly there are at least two other Anna Nova's, one of whom is contemporary with the one who appeared at Evrovidenie. I have no confirmation of whether Anna continued to sing after Nano broke up - or if she just opened up an art gallery and learned to ride a horse.

This is Get Ready (English version) - also released in 2009.

Model: Anna Nova