Another episode of the successful Israeli talent show “The Next Star 2018” (HaKohav Haba) that once again will select Israel’s representative in Eurovision has now been concluded and the finalists have been narrowed down to just 9.
One of these 9 hopefulls will represent Israel in Eurovision this year in Lisbon.
In yesterday’s show, we saw the previously announced 12 artists competing in duels, of wich only 9 of them made it to the next round of “The Next Star 2018”, the talent show that Israel has been using since 2015 to select it’s Eurovision participant.
When will the final take place?
Producers announced that the grand final is expected to take place in three weeks from now, though they are waiting to reveal the exact date and other details.
The voting process went as usual: each judge voted yay or nay, with a yay awarding the contestant a score of 10%. The audience in the TV studio voted in a similar way via a special smartphone application and the scores were added together during the performance.
After the performances of the duels, there was a second chance round with the remaining losers performing again where the judges picked up three additional contestants, leading up to 9 acts proceeding for the next episode of “The Next Star 2018”.
These are the remaining 9 acts for The Next Star 2018
- Netta Barzilai
- Jonathan Mergui
- Chen Aharoni
- Eden Meiri
- Adva Omer
- Riki Ben Ari
- Ravit Batashvili
- Jose Steinberg
- Howie Danao
The jury is consisting of the following panel members: Static & Ben-El Tavori, Keren Peles, Harel Skaat and Assaf Amdursky. In this episode though, we saw a guest star joining the panel, namely Israeli Eurovision 2015 participant Nadav Guedj.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BdQdEsPnfFi/?taken-by=nadavguedj
Since Israel started using “The Next Star” in 2015, Nadav achieved the first Top 10 position for Israel since 2005 in 2015. Moreover, all entries since 2015 made it to the final of the Eurovision Song Contest.
Last year Israel was represented by Imri Ziv, who was already backing singer for the Israeli entries in 2015 and 2016. Imri finished in 23rd place in the grand final of Kyiv.
You can watch yesterday’s performances of The Next Star 2018 through the official page of The Next Star.
Who would you like to see for Israel in Lisbon? Let us know in the comments below or on social media @ESCXTRA.
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