It is Eurochallenge time in Cyprus!  Watch LIVE with us at ESCToday.com as the Eurovision Song Project reaches its next phase.  A total of twenty acts will compete for the honour of representing Cyprus at the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna.

About the show

Broadcast by CyBC, and hosted by Antri Kerantoni, the Eurovision Song Project kicked off on Sunday 7 December 2014 with the first of six audition shows.

As reported by ESCToday earlier this week, the two Eurochallenge shows, which were previously scheduled for Sunday evenings, have moved to Fridays.  The Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Project will take place at 21:05 local time (20:05 CET) on Sunday 1 February 2015, and will be streamed live on the CyBC website and eurovision.tv.  The show will also be aired via RIK 1 and RIK Sat via satellite (Hotbird).

How to watch

[alert-info]The action starts at 22:20 local time (21:20 CET) and will be aired on:

• RIK 1
• RIK Sat via satellite (Hotbird)
• A webcast is available through the CyBC website

[/alert-info]

The twenty acts competing tonight are as follows, next to their Eurovision Song Project entries.  Ten of these acts will progress to the second Eurochallenge show, and from there six acts will contest the Grand Final.

• Eva Diva – Come and fight for freedom
• Emily Haralambous – Right in
• Charalampous “Luna” Iosif – I wanna dance (I say tempo)
• Maria Evangelou – Still
• Christina Tselepou – In these arms
• Valence – Scared
• Pieros Kezou – Said it all before
• Maria Moskofian and Christiana Chatziiordanous – Sailing ships, pirates and dragons
• Ioanna Protopapa – Beat of my heart
• Eleni Irakleus – Dawn
• Doody – Magic
• Nearchos Evangelou and Charis Savva – Deila den agapo
• Christos Rialas – Meine
• Minus One – Shine
• Giannis Karagiannis – One thing I should have done
• Yuri Melikov – Victorious
• Apollonia – Don’t give up on me (Just yet)
• Hovig – Stone in a river
• Panagiotis Koufogiannis – Without your love
• Kyriakos Georgiou – Shake dat

Public voting will commence after the second Eurochallenge show on 23 January 2015, concluding on the day of the Grand Final.  The Cypriot representative at the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 will be selected via a 50/50 combination of Jury and televotes.

The Jury of Alex Panayi, Tasos Tryfonos, Despina Olympiou and Elena Patroklou will be joined by Swedish Head of Delegation Christer Björkman and composer and producer Dimitris Kontopoulos for the Eurochallenge shows.

Chat about the Eurovision Song Project on Twitter using the hashtag #eurovisionCY.

The story so far

Cyprus debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest of 1981.  The Mediterranean island is looking to improve upon best finishes of fifth place for Anna Vissi in 1982 (Mono i agapi), Hara and Andreas Constantinou (Mana mou, 1997) and 2004’s entrant Lisa Andreas (with Stronger every minute).  Will 2015 be a special year for Cyprus?

Stay tuned to esctoday.com for all the latest news on The Eurovision Song Project, Cyprus and the Eurovision Song Contest.