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Life After Junior Eurovision: Fiamma from Italy

20 January 2017 at 17:00 CET
Fiamma Boccia from Italy Andres Putting (EBU)
In 2016 Italy competed in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest for the third time. Fiamma Boccia performed Cara Mamma (Dear Mom) and finished an impressive third place. We spoke to Fiamma to find out more about her experiences in Malta and what she's been doing since the competition. 

Fiamma lives in Florence with her parents and 14-year-old sister Emilia who is also a singer. Her favourite subjects at school include Italian, History, Music, English, German and Science. She has been playing the piano since she was four and started singing at the same age. 

  • What have you been up to since the contest?

A few weeks after the contest I was invited to sing on national television as a guest on Zecchino d’Oro, a famous song contest for children in Italy. I had already sang in that contest when I was 9 and it had been a wonderful experience. I would have never imagined I would have the chance to sing on that stage again!! Apart from that, I have been studying a lot, this is my final year at junior high school and I want to do well in my exams! Considering that I keep on studying the piano, singing in my choir and dancing… well… my days are quite full!

  • What is your favourite memory from the week?

I must say that the whole week was memorable. Wonderful and unforgettable. Probably the greatest experience of my life. Maybe the moment that best sums it up, my favourite memory, is when we all started singing Mariam’s song after she was proclaimed the winner. She was so moved that she could not sing, her voice faltered and, probably because I sing in a choir, it came spontaneous for me to sing with her, to help keep her voice steady. It seems all the others had the same feeling too, in a second I realised that we were all singing Mariam’s song together, inventing the words… till she was able to go on by herself. That was completely spontaneous, a wonderful moment of union, a real vocal embrace! Another happy memory is the last evening in the hotel with my friends, the mixture of happiness for being together and sadness because it was the last day.

  • What advice would you give someone who is thinking about participating in 2017?

As regards the preparation I would advice to really “feel” your song. On such a big stage the emotion is great and the technical aspects of singing may be negatively influenced by the tension, but if you really feel your song, your heart will sing it for you and this will help you go through the first moments of “fear” that we experience on stage before actually starting to have fun.

Most importantly, do not think that winning is the most important aspect of participating in Junior Eurovision. Of course it is a contest and, like in every game, one hopes to win… but the real objective of all games is having fun and not winning. Representing Italy, I am glad I achieved a third place for my country, but I have won much more than a third place on a personal level. Before arriving in Malta I was excited and happy at the idea of meeting all the young people from the other countries, but I was also a little worried: I had seen them and heard them sing, they seemed to me to be wonderful artists. Would they want to be my friends? Would I be able to move around in this different world? Well… I was able to, and these fantastic people really wanted to be my friends! We keep in contact, we have a group on Instagram and I hope, I am actually planning, to meet at least some of them again… This is my great victory, our great victory! So my most deeply felt piece of advice is: go looking for the right things and you will win, no matter how many votes you get!

Watch Fiamma's live performance below: