LIVE: Jury Rehearsal second Semi Final of Eurovision 2026
Tomorrow it’s time for the first semi final of Eurovision 2026. 18 countries will perform; 15 of them will compete for a place in the Grand Final of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest. But 50% of the results will already be decided tonight! Follow the jury rehearsal with us. In this blog you can read what we think of the vocal qualities of each country, and how we think the juries will react to their performance.
NOTE: The star ratings are our indication of how likely it is that the professional jury might vote for this performance. They do not display any personal preferences.
For more information on how to read this blog, check out our Jury Jargon Explanation.
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22:16 – Ukraine – Leléka – Ridnym
Leléka cuts a few lower notes short in the first verse, but avoids mistakes and does not go off-key. The higher ranks in the chorus is where Leléka shines, and she shows off her qualities there. Tough to see why EBU would put Australia and Ukraine right next to each other, with both the songs and the vocals being somewhat similar. Leléka shows off with a very long, very high note before the final chorus and she nails it – but she then misses the easier first note of that chorus right afterwards. A minor mistake in an otherwise strong vocal performance.
“Ridnym”is another traditional ballad with a clear structure. Classic jury food, especially when paired with strong vocals. This semi final is interesting because it contains so many of these entries – a fact that cannot be seen separately from EBU’s decision to get juries back in the semies.
22:11 – Australia – Delta Goodrem – Eclipse
Delta shows off her vocal qualities in this performance. After a solid first two sentences, she fully lets loose in the last note towards the chorus and the crowd reacts. In the chorus, one note at the words “one kiss” is on the edge, a notable exception in an otherwise flawless performance. Second verse while walking the stage is again solid. It is during the final minute that Delta goes into overdrive with a few very big ad-libs. Maybe over the top for televoters, but juries simply appreciate this kind of vocal acrobatics.
Australia’s song has the pace of a mid-tempo pop song, but the build-up and structure of a ballad. This combination makes it a song perfectly tailored to juries. Combine that with Delta’s voice, her professionalism and star power, and you get a potential jury winner – not only for tonight. Biggest question is how big the split will be between jury vote and televote.
Within Eurovision context, Zlata Ognevich (Ukraine 2013) is a good point of comparison: she had a rather even split between her jury vote and televote. However, you could also think back to Ira Losco in 2016, who won her semi in the jury vote but finished only 9th with televoters.
22:04 – Denmark – Søren Torpegaard Lund – Før vi går hjem
The first “du har mig” is off-key, sliding off on the high side. The final high note of the first pre-chorus is also off-key, and he misses another two notes low in the chorus. Given what we know about Søren’s qualities as an artist, there must be something wrong with him, be it a virus or simply nerves. He skips a few words of his lyrics at times, too, and he cuts the big high notes before the final chorus short. Final minute sounds slightly better but still not great. Qualification should not be in danger of course, but Søren has only until Friday to improve if he wants to live up to the high expectations. This was not good enough.
All signs point toward this being a jury friendly entry. Not only because Søren is a strong vocalist, but also because previous entries within this genre (UK 2024, Belgium 2023) relied heavily on jury support as well. The staging, while possibly confusing or repellent for televoters, will attract jury support because of the Mans-factor. Singing while also performing a technically difficult act, and commanding the stage while doing it, is the kind of professionalism juries reward way more than televoters.
22:00 – Latvia – Atvara – Ēnā
Despite a slight nervous tremor, Atvara is on-key for the first verse and chorus. Her first minor mistake comes at the second note of the second chorus, where she cuts a note short. The big high notes toward the end come out strong. Quite the contrast vocally with the previous performances, where comparably, Atvara comes out great.
This is the kind of ballad with a clean, classical structure that fits right in what juries are looking for. The staging fits that bill: it has a visually interesting concept, but not one that distracts or takes away from its credibility. However, there is plenty of competition within this genre tonight. The biggest question might not be whether Atvara is a qualifier with juries, but whether she will get enough points to overcome potential televoting deficits.
21:55 – Austria – Cosmó – Tanzschein
Cosmó starts his performance lying on the floor – an attempt to increase the level of difficulty of his performance in what remains an extremely flat song. Juries will notice the flatness – just think back to Manel in 2017. They will also notice the masks, which could trigger the FOP-effect. Red flags all around. No big vocal mistakes, but obviously not a big jury hit either.
21:50 – Cyprus – Antigoni – Jalla
The first two sentences are almost completely off-key. Antigoni starts the first verse completely without backing vocal support and that was a bold, but wrong choice by the Cypriotic team. Both the verses and the pre-choruses feature a lot of vocal mistakes, with the sentence “might just have you falling in love” being the worst of all.
As mentioned before, there is some precedent for juries rewarding ethnopop, but one of the requirements for that (aside from an exceptional vocal performance) is a clean, classical structure. “Jalla” comes in fits and starts, and the middle part of the song can definitely be perceived as messy.
Antigoni has no talent show background, but instead is famous for participating in “Love Island” in the UK. While this familiarity could help her in the televote, I wonder if it can also be a red flag for some jurors. Though it must be said, this is just a theory and there is currently very little precedent to back this up.
21:45 – Switzerland – Veronica Fusaro – Alice
Veronica is on the edge for a few of the lower notes in the first verse. She slides off them without straying too far. The first “I” in the chorus is off-key, and at the word “time”, the backing vocal is off-key for one note. Second verse is solid. It seems as though Veronica has picked up from here, getting to the end without any mistakes.
Juries have not generally voted for alternative country songs like this one, except when entries combined a mainstream instrumentation with a toned down, quiet artistic presentation. This has neither of those elements. What it does have, is a message that could be perceived as progressive – however, it could just as easily be perceived as offensive, with the main character longing to break up a marriage. Veronica participated in The Voice of Switzerland.
21:40 – Armenia – Simón – Paloma Rumba
Simon starts the performance upside down. He then sings a flawless first verse and chorus. While this may not be a vocally very difficult song to sing – the combination with the performance and the heavy dancing, and the rhythmic changes, make it much harder. Simon not only sings well, he is a very skilled performer who commands the stage. The question is: does it matter, if juries will perceive this as a joke entry?
Despite being quite a skilled vocalist, we have to assume that Armenia is more suitable for televoters than juries. The song, but even more the performance, can be perceived as funny, not serious, perhaps even gimmick-y. While not extremely over the top, a little bit of FOP-effect could be in play.
21:33 – France – Monroe – Regarde!
Same as Tuesday, we will describe the finalists’ performance through the eyes of a juror, without giving a star ranking, since they are already qualified.
After a slightly hoarse note in the second sentence, Monroe sounds very good when she gets to the higher ranks, and even more so during the opera loops in the chorus. The quick changes from pop to whisper, to opera has a high level of difficulty and juries will be impressed by this. Monroe misses one note high in the final chorus, proving she is human after all. Great vocal performance all in all.
Opera inspired entries in Eurovision have generally fared better with televoters than with juries, with Il Volo being an obvious example, and JJ being the one big exception last year.
21:28 – Czechia – Daniel Žižka – Crossroads
Daniel has a slight tremor in his voice in the first verse. Nerves? He does not miss any notes, thankfully. The first chorus sounds good, with a solid long high note at the end. The tremor remains at times throughout the second verse and chorus, but this is a solid performance nonetheless. Especially when Daniel puts an exclamation point at the end of the song with a few big high notes that he hits soundly. He does not allow the jurors to sit back in their chair – however, he is the first one who gets through his performance fully on-key.
Do not rush to the conclusion that Czechia is classic jury food. Czechia draws on a more tranquil and artistic kind of ballad – the kind that generally gets picked up by televoters at least as much as by jurors. It lacks the traditional build-up that juries tend to favor, and it is not mainstream but instead leans more towards love/hate. However, in its presentation and execution it does portray credibility. Think back to “Blackbird”, Finland 2017, which would have qualified with televoters, but was eliminated by juries.
21:26 – Mediocre start to the “jury semi”
Tonight was supposed to be the “jury friendly semi final”, however, the start of the night is mediocre. Two artists who rely on the jury vote, like Luxembourg and Azerbaijan, have not delivered and Romania was also weaker than expected.
21:24 – Luxembourg – Eva Marija – Mother Nature
Eva has a shaky voice in the first verse, but she gets through it without missing notes. Those come, however, in the pre-chorus, at the words “in the mud”. Chorus solid, however at the start of the second verse, she is off-key for a long note at the word “leaves” and this trend continues throughout the verse. Second pre-chorus is better than the first one, without big misses but the damage is already done.
There are no obvious red flags in this performance. In terms of composition, we get a mid-tempo ballad with non-offensive instrumentation, and a classical build-up. In terms of the staging, we get a hippie vibe from this performance, which also has a cheerful and non-offensive vibe to it. That type of image generally relies more on juries than televoters. See Hungary 2015 or Bulgaria 2021 for comparison, however, those songs were both a bit darker, slower and less upbeat.
Composer Thomas Stengaard rose to fame with “Only Teardrops”, an ethnopop song with a similar vibe in staging. That entry was a winner with both juries and televoters, without a significant gap between the two. Eva Marija herself has no talent show background.
21:20 – Romania – Alexandra Căpitănescu – Choke Me
The lower ranks of the first verse are off-key. Chorus comes out strong, including the high classical notes. Second time around is similar: Alexandra shines in the higher rank chorus, however she struggles in the lower parts of the verse. She also consistently skips one lower note in the chorus.
The rougher the rock song, the less accessible it becomes for the generally rather mainstream oriented juries. See for example Finland 2021 for comparison in terms of the jury and televote split: In the semi final, Blind Channel won the televote, but finished “only” 6th in the jury vote. Another comparison might be Eldrine for Georgia in 2011, who finished 13th with juries in its semi final but 5th with televoters. This composition still has some pop elements in it, however, it also features slight grunt elements, dark gothic styling and potentially divisive lyrics that could trigger certain female jurors. Alexandra is already the second winner of The Voice in a row; she won it in Romania in 2023.
21:16 – Azerbaijan – Jiva – Just Go
Jiva sounds a bit hoarse in the first three words of the song. After that, she picks up cleanly with the rest of the first verse. The ad-libs in the pre-chorus come out strong. In the second verse, she misses a note at the words “side by side” and again with “never die”. It’s the lower ranks that she sometimes struggles with. In the second pre-chorus comes her first big mistake when she yanks a big note off-key at the words “goodbye” – and again one more at the end of the second chorus. For a performance that relies this heavily on juries, it simply is not good enough.
The song is a classical ballad, slightly dated, with credible and traditional staging. All of those aspects make it much more suitable for juries than for televoters. However, Azerbaijan does face plenty of ballad competition in this semi final, and it remains to be seen what the influence of the new rules will be on the jury voting this year. Will the two mandatory young jurors tilt the voting slightly more towards modern choices?
“Breathlessly” (Malta 2017) finished in 8th place with juries in the semi final, but scored 0 televoting points and failed to qualify. Jiva won The Voice in Azerbaijan.
21:11 – Bulgaria – Dara – Bangaranga
Dara is on the edge for several notes in the first verse, missing only the one at “riot” the first time around. First chorus comes out okay, but in the second verse some of the notes are again on the edge. It’s the kind of vocal performance that will not bother televoters, however juries can never sit back and listen confidently. The first bridge “close to the edge” is off-key at multiple moments. Second bridge solid, right before the dance break at the end.
It is not easy to pinpoint the exact genre of this song, however, a combination of ethnopop and Southern European club music probably comes closest. Juries have at times appreciated the former genre, but only in exceptional (vocal) performances. The mixture of genres can be a red flag, as well as the many pace changes throughout the song. Point of comparison: “Mata Hari” which was a non qualifier with juries in 2021 (11th place in the semi final).
There is also precedent for female jurors punishing songs with very explicit sexual lyrics, though it must be said that the visual performance – while chaotic – is not extremely overtly sexual. Dara was a finalist on X-factor Bulgaria.
21:02 – We are underway
The show has started.
20:56 – Focus on jury
One more disclaimer: in this blog, we focus on performances and jury scores only. There will be no info / comment on postcards, interval acts et cetera.
This year is a bit different compared to other years, because we have not had any previous rehearsals we could watch from the (online) press office. Therefore, the jury blog will be our first blog of the season. Join us again tomorrow afternoon, as we will use the 3rd dress rehearsal to describe to you all the performances and the show elements as well.
20:49 – Not just any blog
Team ESCDaily has studied jury results extensively over the past few years. We are confident that we know what jurors are looking for in a Eurovision performance. And tonight, we will describe each performance for you through the eyes of a juror! Stay with us, we’ll start soon!
