Urban Symphony

Urban Symphony
Urban Symphony (2009)
Background information
Origin	Tallinn, Estonia
Genres	Classical crossover,electronic,pop
Years active	2007–2010
Past members	Sandra Nurmsalu Mann Helstein Johanna Mängel Mari Möldre

Urban Symphony is an Estonian music group. It represented Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 with the song "Rändajad", finishing in 6th place with 129 points. This is the best place for Estonia in the contest since 2002.

In autumn 2007, Sandra Nurmsalu took part in the singing talent show called 2 takti ette, biennially held by the Eesti Televisioon and broadcast nationwide. In a week of the contest, the contestants were tasked to form bands each on their own and each to produce a performance with it. Nurmsalu had studied the violin for two years in the Georg Ots Music School and had previously arranged the song "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica for a string set of the school. Therefore, she decided to use one again. Nurmsalu turned to her former school, where she was introduced to Mann Helstein playing the viola, Johanna Mängel playing the cello, a female contrabass player and a male keyboardist. The band re-scored the song "Hungry" by Kosheen and were pleased with the resulting televised and video recorded live performance. At the end of the series, Nurmsalu, Helstein and Mängel agreed to continue their collaboration. Mängel brought the new cello player Mari Möldre to the band. In the same while, Sven Lõhmus, a music producer invited the group to work with him. The first track the team completed was "Rändajad" for the contest of Eesti Laul, the Estonian selection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2009. The song went on to gain 6th place in the Eurovision final. For this project, Marilin Kongo and Mirjam Mesak joined the group to sing backing vocals. They sing Päikese poole, Skorpion and Crying in the Rain too.