Tonight, the 2008 national final season of the Eurovision Song Contest will continue: the seventh semi final of the Icelandic national selection will be held. Three songs will be presented and the best one – chosen by televoting – will reach the final to be held on 16th February. Of course, there will be a webcast again!
The show
The show will start at 21:15 CET (20:15 local time). The results will be revealed in the second part of the show at 22:40 CET. Ragnhildur Steinunn Jónsdóttir & Gísli Einarsson will host the program.
Although the winners will be chosen by televoting, there is also a jury that comments on the songs. One of the jury members is Selma who represented Iceland twice in the Eurovision Song Contest: in 1999, she achieved second place (Iceland's best result so far) with All out of luck; in 2005 she didn't manage to qualify through the semi final with If I had your love.
You can read more about the selection procedure here.
Webcast
You can follow the high qualitywebcast here.
The songs
It will be the second turn of another three composers who have been commissioned by RÚV to submit three songs each.
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Hafdís Huld Þrastardóttir (singer and composer)- Á gleymdum stað
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Einar Ágúst Víðisson & Sigurjón Brink (singers, composer: Guðmundur Jónsson) – Straumurinn
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Bjartur Guðjónsson (singer, composer: Andrea Gylfadóttir) – The girl in the golden dress
Einar Ágúst Víðisson has represented Iceland in Stockholm in 2000 with Telma Ágústsdóttirand the song Tell me!. They finished 12th, Iceland's 5th best result so far. Hafdís Huld Þrastardóttir opened the 2008 national final season in the first semi final and her ballad Boys and perfume got a ticket for the second chance show.Guðmundur Jónsson has won the first semi final with the song Gef mér von which was presented by Páll Rósinkranz& Gospelkór Reykjavíkur. Andrea Gylfadóttir presented her song Vocalise in the third semi final but neither got a wildcard nor has qualified.
You can find the entire list of the Icelandic preselection composers here.
In 2005, 2006 and 2007, Iceland did not manage to reach the final of the Eurovision Song Contest although the country was sometimes quite close finishing 16th, 13th and again 13th in the semi final respectively. Iceland will havetake part in one of the semi finalsin Belgrade.
