After more than 15,000 auditions, the judges picked 95 to go onto the following round in
Beirut, Lebanon. The second round of auditions consisted of three parts, the first of which saw candidates sing a song of their choice for 60 seconds in front of the panel in groups of 10. Only 61 made it through to the second part of the second round. In this part of the competition, candidates were split into 11 groups of 5 or 6, and had to perform iconic Arabic songs from movies and plays from the previous century. The repertoire consisted of the following songs : For the girls: • "Mali" (by
Warda Al-Jazairia) from the movie "Sawt El Hob" (1973) • "El Ward Gamil" (by
Umm Kulthum) from the movie "Fatmah" (1947) • "Rajain Ya Hawa" (by
Fairuz), from the
Rahbani Brothers's play "Loulou" (1974) • "Ya Wad Ya Teel" (by
Souad Hosni) from the movie "Khali Balak Min Zouzou" (1972) • "Imta Hataaraf/ Layali El Ouns" (by
Asmahan) from the movie "Gharam wa Intiqam" (1944) For the guys: • "Ya Msafer Wahdak" (by
Mohammed Abdelwahab), from the movie "Mamno' El Hob" (1942) • "Gana El Hawa" (by
Abdelhalim Hafez), from the movie "Abi Foq El Shagara" (1969) • "Gharibeyn Ou Layl" (by
Ghassan Saliba), from the
Rahbani Brothers' play "Saif 840" (1987) • "Gabbar" (by
Abdelhalim Hafez), from the movie "Maabodat El Gamahir" (1963) • "Habeena" (by
Farid El Atrash), from the movie "Nagham Fi Hayati" (1975) • "Ana Elli Alayki Mishta'" (by Joseph Sakr), from
Ziad Rahbani's play "
Nazl El Sourour" (1974) After further cuts, only 46 contenders remained, and moved onto the third and final part of the second round of auditions. The remaining competitors had to sing for their lives, of whom only 20 were to be chosen. However, this task proved to be too hard for the judges because of the great talent present. Thus, 27 contestants were hand-picked instead of 20 for the public vote, who had to choose only 12 of them to reach the final round of competitions. The 27 contestants representing 10 Arab countries were revealed on April 6, 2013, and they are : From
Egypt: Karim Houssam (18), Sabrine El Nagily (20), Mirna Hisham (15), Ahmad Gamal (24),
Haidy Moussa (19), Meriem Mohammad (16), Nourhane El Boghdadi (23) From
Morocco: Fatima-Zahra El Qortoubi (27),
Salma Rachid (18), Omar El Idrissi (24), Jamal Abbad (25),
Yousra Saouf (20) From
Tunisia: Mohammed Dughman (24), Zouhour El Shaari (23), and Mohammed Amer (26) From
Syria:
Farah Youssef (21), Abdelkarim Hamdan (25) From
Iraq: Parwas Hussain (24),
Oussama Naji (23), Mohannad Almarsoumi (27) From
Lebanon: Ziad Khouri (24), Wael Said (18) From
Saudi Arabia: Ibrahim Abdallah (25), Fares El Madani (27) From
Algeria: Saad Nizar (28) From
Bahrain: Hanane Reda (21) From
Palestine:
Mohammed Assaf (23) == Semi-final ==