Lithuania: A step closer to the semi-final!

06 February 2016 at 22:50 CET

Ieva Zasimauskaitė, one of the contestants V. Radžiūno (LRT.lt)

The Eurovision marathon in Lithuania is halfway through, but there are still five rounds to go. Another two contestants have left the show, and eight acts have advanced in the competition. Once again, the artists who performed the songs tonight, have competed with entries the Lithuanian public broadcaster (LRT) received separately during the submission period.

The fifth show of Lithuanian national selection "Eurovizija" was aired tonight (February 6), and it featured 10 performances (qualifiers from the third round of this year's competition).
The contestants who performed in LRT's third show, were the artists who applied without a song for the national selection in Lithuania.

Ten acts were performed in the following order:

Baiba Mayday *(eliminated)
Berta Timinskaitė Stars In A Rainbow *(eliminated)
Ieva Zasimauskaitė Life (Not That Beautiful)
Neringa Šiaudikytė Never Knew Love
4 Roses Butterfly
Ruslanas Kirilkinas In My World
Aistė Pilvelytė You Bet
Saulenė Chlevickaitė Strong
Milda Martinkėnaitė If Tomorrow Never Comes
E.G.O. Long Way From Home

Gallery: In pictures: Impressions of the 5th show

TONIGHT'S QUALIFIERS

Aistė Pilvelytė
Ruslanas Kirilkinas
Ieva Zasimauskaitė
4 Roses
Saulenė Chlevickaitė
Milda Martinkėnaitė
Neringa Šiaudikytė
E.G.O.

*The results are based on jury votes (Lithuanian and international) and a public televoting (50/50).

Like in the previous show, the two acts which received the least support from the jury members and TV viewers across the country were eliminated. Ten performers who applied without a song were competing tonight - all the qualifiers from the third round.

The national jury in the fourth show consisted of Ramūnas Zilnys, Darius Užkuraitis, Gintaras Rinkevičius and Olegas Aleksejevas.

Furthermore, the international experts who shared their votes in tonight's show were: Denis Ingoldsby, (British producer), Karlis Auzans (a member of MELO-M, Latvian instrumental band) and Dave Holmes (British guitarist).

This year we have two groups of performers competing. One consists of those who have their own entry, and the other one consists of artists who applied without a song, said Audrius Giržadas, Head of Lithuanian Delegation for Eurovision.tv

The artists who didn't have a song were offered to choose an entry from a variety of songs submitted by Lithuanian, but also foreign authors. Interestingly, we have strong performances in both of the groups. So we are quite curious how things will develop, Giržadas added.

10 shows, 27 acts, one ticket to Sweden
On December 21, 2015, LRT announced the names of 28 artists selected for this year's national selection. Among the contestants, there are some well-known Eurovision faces. Erica Jennings represented Lithuania in 2001 (as a member of the group SKAMP), and Donny Montell, who took part in the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest.

In the meantime, the Lithuanian public broadcaster confirmed that there will be 27 acts competing for the role of a Lithuanian representative in Stockholm at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest.
There are ten rounds of the competition this year. The final of Lithuanian "Eurovizija" is scheduled for 12th of March at 20:00 CET. It will also be broadcasted live via webcast on Eurovision.tv.

The next round of the competition will be aired on 13th of February, 2016 at 20:00 CET. If you've missed tonight's show, you can still watch it online www.lrt.lt