Iceland: Yohanna and Matthías Matthíasson & Erla Björg Káradóttir progress to final
22 January 2011 at 23:25 CET
Last week in Söngvakeppni Sjónvarpsins Erna Hrönn Ólafsdóttir and Haraldur Reynisson qualified from the first semi final and will compete again in the Icelandic national final on February 12th. In tonights second semi final, five more acts performed, all hoping to join Erna and Haraldur in the final, but only two were victorious in their quest. Tonight saw the return of the popular Yohanna, who finished in second place for Iceland in the Final of Europe's Favourite TV Show in Moscow in 2009.
This week there was no opening act and it was straight in to the songs. The songs were presented after a short interview with the composers of each entry. After all of the performances there was a window of opportunity for the televoting public to call in and decide which songs they wished to send to the final.
This evenings acts were as follows (Qualifiers in bold) :-
Yohanna and Matthías Matthíasson & Erla Björg Káradóttir now progress to the Icelandic final. Only two more places in the final are up for grabs and during next Saturday's third semi final, two more songs will be chosen and therefore complete the final line up of Söngvakeppni Sjónvarpsins 2011.
Iceland have been participating in the Eurovision Song Contest since 1986. Over the years they have enjoyed some success, and have come close to winning on two occasions, finishing in second place in the Final in 1999 in Jerusalem with Selma and the high energy All Out Of Luck, and as earlier mentioned, again more recently in 2009 in Moscow with Yohanna's haunting ballad Is It True.
Last year, in Oslo Hera Björk qualified for the Final with Je Ne Sais Quoi but could not emulate Yohanna's success a year earlier finishing in 19th place.
