A new edition of Festival da Canção starts tonight in Portugal with the first semi-final of RTP’s traditional format to select the Portuguese representative for the Eurovision Song Contest.
A total of 20 artist are competing at this year’s Festival da Cancao and 10 of them will perform tonight with the aim of winning one of the five tickets for the Grand Final. These are the participants of today’s first semi-final:
- Os Quatro e Meia – Amanhã
- TheMisterDriver – Calisun
- Diana Castro – Ginger Ale
- FF – Como é Bom Esperar Alguém
- Norton – Hope
- Aurea – Why?
- Kumpania Algazarra – A Minha Praia
- Maro – Saudade, Saudade
- Valas & Os Astronautas – Odisseia
- Fado Bicha – Povo Pequenino
The top five will qualify for the final alongside with the top five of the next semi-final (Monday, March 7th). Jury (50%) and televoting (50%) will decide the 10 best participants who will sing in the Grand Final on March 12th. In the case of a tie, the jury’s opinion decides.
The jury members are Dulce Pontes, Dino D’Santiago, Surma, Teresa Salgueiro, Pedro Granger, Miguel Cadete and Tatanka, The Black Mamba’s vocalist who represented Portugal last year in Eurovision after winning Festival da Canção 2021.
Sónia Araújo and Jorge Gabriel will host the first semi-final while Inês Lopes Gonçalves will be in charge of the Green Room. Moreover, four special guests will perform today, including Rita Redshoes, who will pay tribute to a famous composer from Portugal, Expensive Soul duo and Rui Pregal da Cunha, who was one of the guest composers in the 2020 edition. And of course, The Black Mamba will once again take the stage that saw them winning a year ago.
You can watch the show live at 22:00 CET via our Multi-window live feed from the RTP studios in Lisbon.
