Malta in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2017

The national final took place on 1 July 2017.[3] The national final consisted of ten competing acts participating in a televised production. Each of the 10 participants sang a song of their own choice. After all of them had performed, the results were decided through 100% televote and Gianluca Cilia as announced was the winner of the national final.[4]

Gianluca Cilia (born 12 November 2007) is a Maltese child singer. He represented Malta at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2017 in Tbilisi, Georgia on 26 November 2017 with a song "Dawra tond", performed in both English and Maltese.

Gianluca started to sing at the age of 6, and he takes singing and music lessons at Harmonic Ensemble. His first participation in a major competition was in 2015, taking part in Oltroceano in Palermo, winning the festival. A year later he represented Malta in an international singing festival in Romania, placing third with his song Mamma lo canto per te. In that same year he also took part in the inaugural edition of Arpeggio, in Malta, achieving the first place.[6]

"Dawra tond" (Maltese for round in a circle) is a song by Maltese child singer Gianluca Cilia. It represented Malta at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2017.

The results of the 2017 Junior Eurovision Song Contest were determined by national juries and an online audience vote. Every country had a national jury that consisted of three music industry professionals and two kids aged between 10 and 15 who are citizens of the country they represent. This jury was asked to judge each contestant based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act. In addition, no member of a national jury could be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. The first phase of the online voting started on 24 November 2017 when a recap of all the rehearsal performances was shown on junioreurovision.tv before the viewers could vote. After this, voters also had the option to watch longer one-minute clips from each participant's rehearsal. This first round of voting stopped on Sunday, 26 November, at 15:59 CET. The second phase of the online voting took place during the live show and started right after the last performance and was open for 15 minutes. International viewers could vote for a minimum of three countries and a maximum of five. They could also vote for their own country's song. These votes were then turned into points. The number of points was determined by the percentage of votes received. For example, if a song received 20% of the votes, thus it would receive 20% of the available points. The public vote counted for 50% of the final result, while the other 50% came from the professional juries.

• Malta received 81 points from Online voting.