Israel: Superstar Noa Kirel will represent the country in Eurovision 2023!

Israel is the first country to choose its representative for Eurovision 2023. Following an internal selection procedure, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (also known as “KAN”) announced today that the professional committee appointed for the selection of the Israeli representative has decided that Noa Kirel (Hebrew: נועה קירל) will represent the country in the Eurovision 2023.

Who is Noa Kirel?

The 21-year-old Kirel became famous seven years ago when she released her first single called “Medabrim” (English meaning – “Talking”). It was followed by successful hits including “Killer”, “”Yesh Bi Ahava” (English meaning – “There’s Love in Me”), “Tikitas” (Hebrew version of “Τι Κοιτάς”, originally by Eleni Foureira), “Million Dollar”(featuring Shahar Saul), “Yahalomim” (English meaning – “Diamonds”) etc.

In addition, she starred in TV shows, in a film, and participated in the Talent Shows in 2019 and 2020. She has won the MTV Europe Music Awards for the best Israeli act between 2017 and 2020.

Since signing with the international record label Atlantic Records, Kirel has released three successful singles; “Please Don’t Suck” which was released in July last year, “Bad Little Thing” and “Thought About That” which was released in February, and which it has already gathered more than 34 million views.

 

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The selection process

Last month, the Broadcasting Corporation announced that Israel’s representative in the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest will be selected through a professional committee, for the first time since 2014.

From 2015 to 2020, Israeli representatives were selected to compete in the reality show “The Next Eurovision Star”. This year, Michael Ben David was chosen to represent Israel in Turin, after winning the “X Factor for Eurovision” program that aired on Network 13. Ben David  did not qualify for the finals of the competition.

The committee included ten members, with expertise in culture, music, television and Eurovision. According to the announcement, committee members discussed 78 names of male and female singers “with rich and proven experience in performing before a large audience”.

In the second stage, each member of the committee suggested two names from the list  (up to 20 names in total). Then, the committee discussed the artists appearing on the list and narrowed the list down, in order of priority, with the most suitable artist ranked first on the list and so on.

At the end of the discussion, KAN made an official offer to the artist who was ranked first on the list to represent Israel in the competition, under conditions that will be determined by KAN. Noa Kirel’s representatives said that “Noa will be proud to represent Israel”.