Yes! To our great pleasure, tonight sees the very first Eurovision show of the year we just welcomed. As the Israeli search for their 2018 Eurovision representative is well and truly underway, the Duels round of their selection procedure The Next Star is being brought to a start this evening.

So, what’s up right now?

Over last week’s heats, the 70 artists who had made it through the first auditioning stage were shortlisted only to 20 by the 4-member judging panel. On Sunday, the New Year’s Eve show saw a further 13 artists join the 7 who had qualified to the next round last Thursday. Hence, the 20 lucky artists who are still in the running for the Israeli Eurovision ticket are the following:

• Riki Ben Ari
• Jonathan Margi
• Adva Omer
• Neta Barzilai
• Jose Steinberg
• Chen Aharoni
• Shir Baruch
• Eden Meiri
• The Yamanz
• Sarit Hativa
• Jaki Gaforov
• Ofir Harush 
• The Choice 
• Gal Yaakoni
• Axum
• Shir Gadasi
• Tal Mizrahi
• Howie Danao
• Ravit Batashvili
• Rinat Bar

The 4 judges of the Israeli 2018 national selection are:

• Static & Ben-El Tavori: Israeli musical pop group
• Keren Peles: Israeli singer-songwriter, poetess and a pianist
• Harel Skaat: Israel singer-songwriter; former representative at Eurovision 2010
• Assaf Amdursky: Israeli singer, songwriter and music producer

And how is it going to run?

As the auditioning rounds which shortlisted the 20 best acts of this year’s The Next Star show, the real competition is beginning here with the duels stage!

Divided into pairs, each of the remaining artists will have to face each other, as only one will be proceeding to the next round. Who? It’s up to our 4 jury members!

Therefore, 10 of the 20 acts will unfortunately say goodbye to the show at this point, whilst the other 10 will continue fighting for the final victory.

How to watch

The Next Star 2018 is going to air this evening at 20:00 CET (21:00 local time) on the following channels:

• Keshet 12
• Live webcast via mako.co.il

 

Stay tuned on ESCToday for the show’s results,
as well as all Eurovision 2018 news!