Eurovision 2026. Romania has chosen its representative / Alexandra Căpitănescu will represent the country in Vienna – VIDEO
Alexandra Căpitănescu will represent Romania in the Eurovision 2026 edition, which is held in Vienna. The national jury decided, following the final broadcast on Wednesday evening by TVR, that among all the 12 contestants who reached the final, Romania must send the song “Choke Me”, sung by Alexandra Căpitănescu, to the semi-finals of Eurovision 2026.
Alexandra Căpitănescu explained that her song represents a dialogue between herself and “ghost voices that do not give us peace, keep us stuck in the past, keep us anchored in fear”.
“And the chorus is quite positive: we say how important self-love is and it conveys to be gentler with ourselves, in general, in everything we do, in all fields, because that's the only way we reach our true potential. If we didn't set our own limits, we would reach 100% of our potential”, said the artist according to eurovisionromania.ro.
Eurovision 2026: Romania will be represented by Alexandra Căpitănescu
The National Selection started at 20:00 and was broadcast on TVR 1, TVR Moldova, TVR International, tvrplus.ro, on the TVR+ mobile application and on TVR's YouTube account.
Alexandra Căpitănescu's moment can be watched below:
Eurovision 2026: Who is part of the jury that decided that Alexandra Căpitănescu will represent Romania in Vienna
In the Eurovision Romania 2026 final, the jury decided, at the end of the performances, who will represent Romania in the music competition that this year takes place in Vienna. Each judge awarded points to each representative, and in the end, the competitor with the most points was declared the winner.
The jurors also decided the finalists, after the semi-finals of Eurovision Romania. The public sent, in addition to the 10 contestants chosen by the jury, two more artists to the final – Antonio Pican and Andrei Ursu (WRS), who collected the highest number of views on TVR's YouTube account.
The Eurovision Romania 2026 jury includes:
- Andreea Bălan – artist;
- Andrei Tudor – the composer of the song “On the edge of the world”, which Nico & Vlad Mirita performed at the 2008 edition of Eurovision;
- Marius Dia – composer, producer and A&R, with over ten years of experience and constant activity both in the Romanian and international music industry;
- Cristian Tarcea – also known as Monoir, with over 15 years of experience in production and composition;
- Elena Popa – journalist, digital content creator Libertatea and soloist of Yolo Band;
- Doru Ionescu – TVR journalist with over 35 years of experience in music;
- Cristian Marica Rădoi – editor-in-chief and music playlist manager of Radio Romania Cultural, member of the World Music group of UER.
Eurovision closes the list of participating countries in 2026. The lowest number in the last two decades / Romania and Moldova return to the contest
Eurovision 2026: When will Romania find out if it reaches the final in Vienna
The draw for the designation of the participating countries in the two semi-finals of the Eurovision 2026 contest took place on January 12, in Vienna.
Following the draw, it was determined that Israel, Montenegro, Estonia, Georgia, Portugal, San Marino, Croatia, Sweden, Poland, Belgium, Lithuania, Serbia, Finland, Moldova and Greece will compete in the first semi-final, held on May 12. In the second semi-final, on May 14, Albania, Denmark, Armenia, RomaniaCyprus, Switzerland, Norway, Azerbaijan, Luxembourg, Malta, Bulgaria Australia, Ukraine, Czech Republic and Latvia.
The points awarded by the judges will be combined with the results of the public vote to determine the ten qualifying songs from each semi-final. These 20 songs will join the proposal made by Austria, last year's winner and automatic participant in the final on 16 May.
France, Germany, Italy and Great Britain also qualify directly for the finals, without taking part in the semi-final selection, thanks to their status as main sponsors.
Eurovision 2026: The other songs that reached the national final
The 12 songs that made it to the Eurovision 2026 Romania final can be viewed on TVR's official YouTube channel. According to the organizers, the number of views accumulated by each finalist song in the playlist published on February 15 would have constituted a tie-breaker if the scores given by the jury had led to a runoff situation.
Emy Alupei – “Tili Bom”
Robert Lukian – “Fire to the lies”
HVNDS Band – “Longing”
Vanu – “Therapy Enemy”
Edward Maya x LavBbe x Costi – “Everybody Needs Somebody”
Yguana – “Happy Birthday”
Antonio Pican – “Humans”
Wrs – “All The Way”
Olivia Addams – “Crocodile”
Monica Odagiu – “Window for a Blind Man”
Alejandro Zandes & Emil Rengle – “Bailando Solo”
