She is one of Israel’s biggest pop stars and the first artist that was confirmed for Eurovision 2023 over in the summer. And now, after months without any new information, Noa Kirel has finally spilled some Eurovision tea and we know you are thirsty for it.
Over the weekend Noa gave an interview to Raz Shechnik for the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. She shared her plans and feelings as we approach 2023 and the Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool.
High expectations for Israel’s Noa Kirel
Noa Kirel was a big name long before Eurovision 2023, and as a result of that she is getting massive support in Israel (and even outside the country too). But competing as an established artist can be complicated. When the subject of stress came up in the interview she shared her feelings in a very honest way:
“There are a lot of expectations. Many people are saying to me that I will win and that it will be amazing. It’s so much fun to know that so many people believe in me and give me a huge hug, but it’s also stressful when the expectations are so high. People are sure that I will win because I’m an established artist, but it doesn’t necessarily work that way. I will give my best but it’s not all up to me when it comes to the results. I hope not to disappoint anyone.”
Noa Kirel’s Eurovision 2023 songs
Noa and her team had some sessions with leading Israeli composers, producers and songwriters. Among the big names are Doron Medalie, Jordie, Ron Biton, Itay Shimoni, Yinon Yahel, and May Sfadia, along with some songwriters from abroad.
While she is not creating the songs by herself, it’s really important for Noa to be involved and to play a significant part in the creative process, both with the lyrics as well as the melodies. This is how Noa typically gets it done — not just for Eurovision, but also when writing music more generally. She wants to bring herself into each song.
Bringing life to the music feels organic. Her team includes several people who she’s used to working with — and over many years. Because she has full faith in her creative collaborators, she can let loose and have fun, knowing they’re familiar with her artistic path.
Noa’s song options
The process of selecting her Eurovision song is underway, but there’s still a long way to run.
“We just started the process but we’re not halfway yet. We have two main directions at the moment but there might be more later on.”
Noa has recorded demos for two uptempo songs. “That’s the vibe, I doubt that it will be a ballad, but I can say that there are some surprising musical directions among our options.”
The songs she recorded are both in English with a bit of Hebrew included as well. Both have some Middle Eastern touches,.
Noa also mentioned to Israel’s Channel 12 news that the songs are very powerful – one is about love and the other is about power/empowerment. Both hit hard, but in different ways, she said.
The ultimate decision about which song she’ll perform rests with Noa and her nearest and dearest. She and her long-time collaborator Doron Medalie will decide along with KAN’s committee.
Eurovision preparations
Noa has been busy. In case you missed it, at the end of August 2022 she had a huge concert in Tel Aviv in front of of more than 33,000 spectators. She actually made history with that concert as she became the youngest Israeli singer to perform in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park at the age of 21. That’s quite amazing. Artists significantly older than her still haven’t managed to fulfil that dream.
She says that after that huge concert she feels much calmer. It was quite a challenge, but Eurovision is different. For her, it won’t be a full show of almost two hours, but just three minutes (which she’ll arrive at after months of rehearsals and preparation).
Hard work doesn’t scare her.
“Once my song is recorded, we’ll shoot the music video and I will begin my rehearsals. I believe it will be around January. In the preparations for my live concert at Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park I sang while running on a treadmill and I will do that a lot before Eurovision. I’ll have three minutes and my pulse will be so high. I will dance at Eurovision, of course, that’s my thing.”
Noa (and her record label Atlantic Records) are getting ready not just for May 2023, but for the following months as well. She plans to have several international songs ready to be released. She said:
“Thanks to Eurovision I’m also working on some collaborations with European artists and big DJs, but right now my main focus is Eurovision.”
“I know that international success doesn’t happen overnight and that it’s a long process that can take many years. I enjoy this process of exploring my sound and trying to release the best songs I can. It’s a very challenging process that makes me learn a lot and develop.”
Are you excited about Noa Kirel’s Eurovision songs? Let us know down below!
Noa kirel does mostly Western pop so I’m pretty sure it won’t be a full on Middle Eastern sounding song. You can probably expect Middle Eastern motives, maybe similar to Pouch, one of her biggest hits in Israel
She doesn’t look Middle Eastern. More Polish. Go back to Poland.
I wonder what happened to the polish jews that they had to flee poland/europe to begin with..
OMG wtf Kanye West is that you!?
I didn’t knew you could tell a polish person just from looking at them
FYI Noa roots are half from morroco and half from austria….now go back to the hole you came from…asap will be better for everyone
45 seconds each, together with a filmed studio performance. More than Belgian ones. Enough to get a rough idea on most of them.
Listened to them all this morning. Uff… ”iconic” alerts incoming. People knew what ”40 songs from MESC” means, right? Right? For us who know to appreciate the true ”so bad it’s good” value of the pre-selection period, this is goldmine. There are also a few promising ones. Also, I am happy that so many artists will have the opportunity to shine on stage. I just hope that the winning song is actually here. Them changing it last year was for the worse.
All the best! Lord knows that not everyone always brings competitive entries, but ALL of them make me happy with their genuine likability and sincere approach. I’ll try to watch all 4 quarterfinals this January. 🙂
Objectively, I expect it to be between Brooke, Aidan, and Maxine Pace (who came very close to victory a few years back with an uptempo song, and now has a promising ballad whose chorus is deliberately held in the shadows). Not sure they’d me my top 3, though. I feel like some of the unknown names perhaps have more interesting entries (even if Maxine’s is potentially the best one, depending on the chorus). I wish that Malta would vote for the song first, and put the fame and the endurance of the performer second, but one can dream… As for… Read more »
IAWIA is absolute rubbish and deserved its fate. Even if Emma feels like a great artist. As for Destiny, I personally don’t feel like she was humiliated. Plus, she was excellent on stage. There’s a difference between underperforming and flopping. Je me casse underperformed in the televote, but I’d still be happy if I was them: 14th on the televote, 7th overall. A very, very good result. But yeah, when someone hypes it to that degree, it may feel like a letdown after it doesn’t reach the stratosphere it was aiming at. First reason is that the staging wasn’t that… Read more »
Oh, I agree! They had the confidence of winners, and the betting odds overhyped it as heck! In reality, it’s a neat song, which got a good results, and that’s that. Had it finished higher, it would have been overstated. This was good for the song they had. I like it, but I loved some songs more, and they deserved, and got better than Malta – Namely Switzerland, Italy, Ukraine, and France. Funny thing how good, but underperforming result from the betting odds favorites can be seen through negative lence while modest, but okay result from predicted NQs can turn… Read more »
Unironically, most of the songs are just bottom of the barrel. 😉 Brooke’s at least feels somewhat professionally made, although it’s from the same middle of the road cloth as her last entries. Personally, I feel like Ryan Hili is the best one here, but Maltese viewers would never vote for someone obscure in my experience. Maxine Pace also might be my winner IF the chorus actually goes somewhere big. Francesca, Nathan, Bradley are also fine. Dan is such a guilty pleasure entry that I may actually like it! 🙂
”Sometimes middle of the road cloth appeals to me when all others are bottom of the barrel.” Oh, absolutely. It’s just that I find these few not to be mediocre or bottom of the barrel (unless they turn out too repetitive and dull in their progression). But sure, Brooke is an easy top 10 here.
”God save us from the stiletto garbage.” Oh, sure. That’s total tosh. So are Broken Hill, Anything Can Happen, and Piranha, and a few other entries.
I am “enjoying” the guy in the Snoopy shirt with the self-penned inspirational anthem and the high-note confidence
Aaaaand let me guess… they both have a dance break!
The clip you posted for her performance of the song “drum” is simply amazing! She looks like Beyoncé there, the choreography, the outfit, everything at an international level! I’m really excited to watch her performance on the Eurovision stage.
I actually wouldn’t mind a ballad from Israel.
I’m getting extremely excited about this one, perhaps more than I should. I hope it’s not another Jessica Mauboy, Tamta, etc. scenario…
Noa will not be a cringefest on stage like those two were, we can be certain about that at least haha.
I think I already heard something (have friends in Finland and turns out one of them knows someone at yle, but I can’t rule out being trolled by them lol) that’ll take part of this upcoming edition, and I LOVED what I heard. I firmly believe 2023 will be better than 2022
I also like the buildup they make for their selection on social media every year, even though most of it isn’t covered here
Indeed! UMK changed for the better after 2020’s makeover and I love that!
Small instrumental snippets, but judging by the sounds of those we’re getting a diversive bunch of songs.
Was that even seven songs? They tell you nothing.
Yes, I guess the post was so short and omnious as the artist reveal + songs released on the following days are so soon. Also Finnish fans seem to guess the artists way too well for Yle to post something too easy for them to speculate.
You won’t get proper middle Eastern with Noa and God no please I do not want Mizrahi music in ESC.
Because she is interested in generic American pop only, adding just a few ethnic instruments to spice it up. Her song will, most likely, sound as if it was written by a Swedish composers, so nothing revolutionary and wow-like.
That’s not her style and I’m very glad that’s the case.
Because for the most part it’s a bunch of straight guys singing over Women. It’s the most generic crap music in existence. Not all of it, but most.
As several people mentioned below, whatever Israel delivers will be miles better than last year’s trainwreck, but there’s something with Noa that makes me feel hyped! 😀
I think they’re just trolling us tho
That’s true. When you send a bad song last year, there’s only one way to go but up unless you decline further but I don’t think that’s gonna be the case for Israel. Let’s hope the song Noa chooses is the right one That can get Israel to the site.
Yeah, they’re really brief. We’ll just have to wait until January which is coming next week for the full songs and artists.
The artists will be revealed on January 11, and then we’ll have the song selection for the next few days after that. While there’ll only be one song chosen from a national final on the schedule for January (Belgium) And maybe the song from Cyprus Could be released then to make it two songs, January is not an idle month. Norway will be revealing their artists on Jan 4th and the songs will be released on a weekly basis on Mondays before their heats on Saturdays. Malta will begin their quarterfinals in January on Fridays as well. Estonia will have… Read more »
Aww, I’m kind of enjoying this pace where I can really learn to love a song before it rips my heart out.
French delegation is said to reveal “several surprises” about the 2023 national selection at the beginning of January too. But everything is kept mysterious so far…
I can’t wait! She will set the stage on FIRE!
I’m worried we’ll have our standard Israeli Eurovision pop song with a random Middle Eastern sounding instrumental break and a few words in Hebrew.
That won’t win anymore, it’s been done to death, we need something different Israel!
I bet on big surprise from her song, she is surronded by people who knows ehat it means to be unique
well honestly “our standard Israeli Eurovision pop song with a random Middle Eastern sounding instrumental break” its already better than 90% of ESC songs
I am curious to hear her two songs, May the best one win
I don’t want to pile any more expectations on her but seriously, how can we not be excited? She is amazing and it sounds like she’s giving us the Mediterranean banger we all want. We’re even getting guarantees of both Middle-Eastern touches AND Hebrew.
Sorry, girl. I’m beyond hyped.
I’m beyond hyped also. My main worries is that the song will be basic and my other worry is her not being able to give good enough of choreo while singing.
And if anyone comes for me for that it is known that is an issue she is struggling with. Noa mentioned she’s training very hard to be able to dance while singing and I have faith she will be able to do so : )
Don’t bite off more than you can chew on stage.
I hope it’s worth the aching jaw. No really, the expression means don’t overextend yourself, or do something you’re not 100% capable of.
Even though we don’t know the songs yet, I’m pretty confident Israel will qualify for the grand final and might even do well given the fact that Noa is a big established name in Israel who already has a lot of experience as a singer. Not to mention she’s connected to a big record label and has a lot of money being invested in her Eurovision entry.
I’m sure it will be 100 times better than the annoying disaster they sent in 2022. It’s the song and singer that counts, not whether they have a popular following domestically.
The fact she is an established singer in HER OWN country means nothing at ESC. We’ve seen a lot of amateurs at ESC who ended up pretty high, even winning, while we also have seen a lot of singers who were established in their home countries, and still didn’t deliver a great result. I do believe she will be in the final tough, and most likely somewhere in the middle of the scoreboard, which isn’t that bad, but it’s not as good as tipical, online, esc fandom is screaming about, so let’s be realistic
one song about love and the other about power… she knows which one we want
On another news, Netta and Stephan Leggar released a bop a few days ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsZXAuifFsE
She seems very fun and very motivated, I wish her to have a good time during her Eurovision journey, this esc world is far from being easy even for the established artists. An advice for her, stay strong, don’t listen the eurofans at all they are so irrelevant and predictable and remain confident in what you believe is good for you until the end whatever the eurofans can think or say.
I think she knows exactly what she’s doing and therefore it’ll be awesome
It will probably be called a bop and/or a banger and the eurofans will scream the usual yaaas, slay, queen and so on…
Well there will certainly be five (probably male) dancers and no live backing vocals
…and whats wrong with that?
I cant imagine Noa not finishing in the top 5 at least,
her number is going to be huge, millions will be invested
in her act.
Go and win it girl!!!
I wish her the best but to invest a lot of money doesn’t mean that you will finish systematically in the top 5 in Eurovision. You just need a very good song or to be able to deliver an average song brillantly, no need much money for that but big talent, sometimes less is better.
This is exactly the issue with the people surronding her there is almost no chance that her song, clip, staging will be not top notch…its not an option for her and her record company label(atlantic records )not to deliever…it will be strong anyways, how strong? We will have to wait and see, thats why i say top 5 and not a winner for sure
Just cus they think it’s strong does not mean the rest of the world will.
These are people who knows when they have a hit in their hands
Exactly! I am 100% sure she will end up mid-table, and these fans will be instantly silenced, pretending nothing had happened lol
How are you 100% she’ll end midtable when the song isn’t out yet?
This is THE artist I wanted Israel to send and the fact that she’s going still has not registered in my brain. This is the most excited I’ve been and might ever be for an entry from my country.
I think this entry is already being underestimated but that will change when the song is released
I think some are overhyping it while others are disregarding it. People just gotta wait.
I just don’t understand how you can say it’s getting overhyped, when it’s literally, on-paper, one of the best packages that Israel can put together for Eurovision.
Maybe it won’t deliver, but at this moment in time, this deserves everyone’s positivity.
There is a difference between being positive and saying it will most likely win or that it will certainly place top 5. Stuff like that is overhyping it.
This is one of the things I love about Eurovision. It Introduces me to new international artists that I never would’ve encountered had I just remained in my American music bubble. Let’s have Noa picks a strong song That can get Israel back into the final and stave off a slump. Let’s make last year’s (within a week— I believe we’re almost done with 2022 in a few days) disaster a one off. No sliding down.
Hope*. I hate that I can’t edit after I publish a comment.
Right?! You cannot edit or delete comments.
It’s ridiculous. I’ve got to stop writing comments on my phone because that’s where I make most of my writing mistakes. On a laptop I can erase I lot easier.
Yeah I’m always on PC.
Damn it, I did it again. It should say “I can erase a lot easier.”
lol
I love that she is down to earth and knows that just because she is established it doesn’t mean she will win. If only other artists were as humble and hard working as Noa.
She honestly seems really fun and lovely : )
There are artists and then there are Stars, not always so humble. And she is being hyped as a Star.
I mean she is a star.
Fair enough!
wish i could say that for last years representative of Israel. He wasnt anything out of the things you mention.