As we all know — Eurovision is not just about the public vote. Despite many complaints last year about the professional juries, they’re back in full for 2017.
The EBU has released the names of all jurors set to help decide the winner of Eurovision 2017. As usual, there’s a lot of familiar faces too.
Ex-Eurovision Stars in 2017 Juries
The 2016 contest is represented by Zoe Straub, who takes a role on the Austrian jury. Austria are yet to name a fifth juror, so maybe we’ll see another ex-ESC act alongside her!
There’s even two Eurovision winners amongst the ranks. Nicole takes her spot on the German jury. As for the other? Well, that, of course, is Junior Eurovision winner, Dino Jelusic, who is part of the Croatian quintet!
Romania have recruited four former stars to help make their decision. Luminita Anghel, Paula Seling, MIHAI and Cezar will all be part of their jury. That is a who’s who of Romanian Eurovision legends, y’all!
Other names from the past you may recognise include Olta Boka for Albania, Chiara for Malta, Nelly Ciobanu for Moldova and Getter Jaani for Estonia.
There’s plenty of other names on the list, of course. Once you’ve got the Eurovision bug, you just can’t escape!
Controversy with Norway selection?
There’s already a chance that the list may change, though. Norway’s Per Sundnes is also participating in the Norwegian preview show, Addresse Kiev.
Last year, Wiktoria stepped down from the Swedish jury after participating in another preview show. Whether Norway will make the same decision this year is in question, of course — it’s possible for opinions to change when the show is staged live and in full in Kyiv.
Wiktoria herself gets the chance to participate in the jury after all. She’s part of the Swedish jury this year, notably alongside Andreas Johnson.
Oldest and youngest
The UK has the honour of having the oldest juror. 76 year old Mary Hammond is a vocal coach and Head of Musical Theatre at the Royal Academy.
As for the youngest – well, there’s a tie at just 16 years old. Ukraine’s Sofia Tarasova (JESC 2013 runner-up) and Macedonia’s Antonija Gigovska are doing it for the teens, y’all!
What do you think of the jurors for 2017? Are you excited to see what some of your favourites will rank highly? Shout out your thoughts in the comments section below!
The Romanian jury is full of talent, wow. Legend Luminita Anghel <3
I don't know anyone from Italy's jury, and it's my country… I guess we're sending a bunch of middle aged people that are going to vote randomly again.
You forgot to name the spanish act David Civera, and the runner up in Objetivo Eurovision 2017 Paula Rojo! There’s also another remarkable spanish juror, who is Rubén Villanueva, the composer and producer of Barei’s Say Yay! and Barei’s boyfriend as well.
YES I Like Zoe, come on Austria listen to Zoe 🙂
Paula & Ovi in the romanian jury, and Cezar wow
Australian jury looks good. Music teacher with experience in big shows, musical comedian x2, musical theatre actress and Helpmann winner, uni lecturer in music. If anything maybe a bit too professional and a bit too similar in age (33, 35, 35, 44, 45) but no obvious issues about conflicts of interest and some serious musical weight in the mix. WA. NSW, NSW, NSW, NSW is a bit unfortunate but given they need to share a room, understandable. Next year a bit more effort for age and location diversity would be welcome, but that’s not nearly as big a complaint as… Read more »
Oh. I miss Cezar!
Oh please! Get some actual music professionals there. Those teen girls will be voting for Kristian *hard*
We need the young ones! In fact, I really like the composition of Ukraine’s jury–it’s a good variation of professions, and the ages are pretty well-encompassing as well. It might make things difficult, but more requirements (or ‘suggestions’, at least) such as at least two from each sex and at least one juror under 30 and one over 50 might be good to get a varied opinion. A lot of the juries seem kind of homogeneous: ages between 30 and 50 and professions are *highly* similar (mostly singer/songwriters). The wording ‘pursue a profession in or related to the music industry’… Read more »
Gay Opera Dubstep Vampire will be a juror??? That’s gonna be very interesting!
I thought he wasn’t gay, just European…
Well, that is quite a diverse range of jury members! 🙂
I always think that juries should grade each song with the same specific criteria each time (e.g. marks for music content, lyrical content, performance, choreography & style), and that actual music experts with qualifications should be on the jury (not journalists or marketing experts). Having said that, the list looks very good this year. 🙂
Well, they are supposed based on that, but most of the time they rank their favorite countries/songs and that’s it.
Yes I know, and it’s most unprofessional. 🙁
Of course jurors shouldn’t be connected with artists in any way, that goes without saying.
But I still wonder how they do in small countries like Iceland, Montenegro or San Marino? Surely the majority of professionals and artists there must be connected to each other in some ways due to the smallness of the countries and the limited talent pool to chose from?
They have to search pretty deep then to avoid any connections..
I guess it’s not a problem if they’re connected to the artist of their own country, since they can’t vote for them. The problem is when they’re connected to another country’s artist.
Dino!
If this is a sign of things to come, he might be considering returning. He HAS to participate for Croatia one of these years. His voice and songs are incredible and eh could bring not only the rock song, but THE song to beat!
EBU just can’t renovate or amplify the jury panel, since some countries can’t even pick FIVE people without having any controversies.
Can someone explain to me why a person can be in a jury only once every three years? It can’t be easy to constantly come up with qualified music experts with no connection to the other countries, artists or songwriters? I remember last year the Swedish jury caught some flak for giving high points to Azerbaijan and Malta, since some of the jurors knew the songwriters and backing singers. Lisa Ajax’ (yes, she was a juror) record label Capitol apparently does a lot of work with Henrik Wikström, Amir Aly and Jakke Erixson who wrote the Azeri entry. I’m sure… Read more »
Sweden’s jury votes last year were pathetic. 8 to Malta and 10 to Azerbaijan… they clearly didn’t use the parameters they were given. And people still think we need them because they’re ~professionals~ and ~objective~.
Macedonian youngest juror name is Antonia not AntoniJa. It is wrong on eurovision.tv also.
So Wiktoria got a second chance? Interesting.
Quite strange that the Austrian jury also includes the Armenian-born singer Elly V. I smell “My parents come from Armenia, so I give them 12 points”.
Strange to see Mihai as a juror considering he’s Timebelle’s producer. Expecting to see an even greater amount of love going to Switzerland this year from Romania even more so because of Miruna’s nationality.
Well, since the juries these days only consist of music professionals (among them many performers), chances are VERY, VERY high that connections between some of the jurors and some of the contestants will be found. In fact, it’s a Eurovision interpretation of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”. 🙂
Well, in fact he DOES have a conenction with the Romanian jury – he has worked with Luminita Anghel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc8mpr9rwZU 🙂
I don’t think that this is going to influence the outcome, I just wanted to prove my point that it’s actually hard NOT to find a connection between contestants and jurors. It’s a mathematical thing. 🙂
my guess is that romanian jury will vote for Timebelle anyway, but Luminita Anghel might hate Timebelle and see them as rivals, if they share the same producer that maybe likes Timebelle more.
i prefer jury that are teachers/professors at university, not just former esc stars
video with Miruna when she was Shaka Muv.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGOz1urKG6c
Let’s not act like Switzerland won’t get 24 points from Romania anyway 😛
let’s not act like italy won’t get points from romania anyway (the most recent was two years ago 12 points for il volo, last year was not possible) romania returns favors, but we know is actually our diaspora from italy that votes for us
Weird to see Gábor Závodi and Petra Várallyaly on the list of Hungarian jurors – One is the father of the writer and pianist of #HÁTTÉRZAJ, the other is the writer of Fall Like Rain, the two songs the jury wanted so much to be in the final 4 while the audience kept giving them 5 points. Of course, there may be a perfectly understandable answer, I know very few of their inside-stuff.
The two most panned songs by the public in A Dal this year, wow. I thought Hungary was better than that.
Should Daryl Cronin be allowed to be a juror as he was in a band with the Irish contestant? I know he can’t vote for Ireland but he could vote tactically…….
The bigger problem would be if he would be the juror in another country. Since he can’t vote for his own country, there’s no problem.
Anyways, juries are quite unnecessary nowadays.