Israel: Four acts reach the final of “The Next Star”

The semi-final of “The Next Star” (the singing reality show that will choose the Israeli representative for Eurovision 2015) featured six artists, but only four have survived to reach next week’s grand final. Yes, next week we’ll finally know who will represent Israel in Vienna this year. However, we won’t know what song that person will sing on the Eurovision stage until a later date. The finalists are: Sari Nachmias, Avia Shoshani, Iki Levy & The Rasta Hebrew Man, and Nadav Guedj.

The semi-final

It was a long season, with a long auditions phase and many specials, but it was worth the wait. On this week’s show we had 3 head-to-head battles, with the winners getting a ticket to the final. The remaining three had to battle for the final spot.

Nadav Guedj VS. Orit Biansay

This is the battle between Beyonce and Justin (well, the Israeli versions). Nadav chose the song “Locked out of heaven” and all I have to say is that this kid is a pro. He’s singing, he’s moving and the votes just kept on rising…all the judges voted for him and he got a score of 89%.

Orit performed the song “Aba (“Father”). This is a very touching ballad and she sang it pretty well, but still couldn’t beat Nadav with her score of 76%.

Avia Shoshani VS. Sari Nachmias

Avia picked the song “Achshav ata chozer be’chazara” (“Now you’re coming back”), originally sung by Miri Mesika (who was also on tonight’s show).
Avia tore this song up and put a lot of emotion into it. She has quite a connection to the lyrics that speak about a father that left his daugther and coming back after a long time. With all of these emotions Avia got a score of 79%.

Sari performed the song “Etzlech Ba’Olam” (“At your world”). Whenever Sari begins to sing, she puts a spell on you with her unique style. She rocked this song, but the judges didn’t feel it at all, and only one judge voted for her. She ended up with a score of only 53%.

Iki Levy & The Rasta Hebrew Man  VS. Sa’ar “Rusty” Davidov

Iki Levy & The Rasta Hebrew Man chose the song “Chatichat Shamaim” (“a peace of sky”) — this band always do well, they give off a special vibe and they know how to impress the judges – they got 88% this time.

Sa’ar “Rusty” Davidov sang his own song “Zikaron shel paam” (“a memory of the past”).
In the interview right before he performed Sa’ar told the hosts that he was about to withdraw from the show, but he did get up on stage and sang an emotional love song in his own style (to his ex girlfriend, who cried in the audience). However, he didn’t manage to beat the reggae band.

Duets with Israeli stars

The semi final featured 2 major Israeli stars that chose one artist they wanted to duet with. This was pure fun and was not part of the competition.
Omer Adam chose Nadav, while Miri Mesika chose to sing with the rapper Sa’ar “Rusty” Davidov.

The last final ticket – Orit VS. Sari VS. Sa’ar

Here are the songs and scores that each of the contestants got in this round:
Orit Biansay – “Yom echad tevakshi” (“one day you’ll ask”): 71%
Sa’ar “Rusty” Davidov – “Elohay” (“My god”): 69%
Sari Nachmias – “House of the rising sun”: 89%

Sari got the last ticket to the final. We are SO happy.

Next week is the final of “The Next Star”. We still don’t know how the song will be selected (so stay tuned for updates). The final will be broadcasted live and the public can finally vote!

You can watch the final live next Tuesday, February 17, at 21:00 Israel time (so 19:00 GMT and 20:00 CET) on this link.

Who is your favourite? Who do you think would be the best choice for Israel at Eurovision 2015?

You can watch and listen to all of the performances we have had so far to help you make up your mind.

The 4 Finalists:

Sari Nachmias (The cool chick)

Avia Shoshani (The soul-touching singer)

Iki Levy & The Rasta Hebrew Man (The reggae band)

Nadav Guedj (The Israeli Justin Timberlake)

You can follow all of our Follow our Israel Eurovision news here.