One person auditioning tonight for the first-ever “K-State Voice” will be Adam Johnson, junior in bakery science and food science and industry.
“My freshman year, I auditioned for ‘K-State Idol’ and I was one of the finalists, so I thought, ‘Why not try it this year?'” Johnson said. “I also love singing. I’m in the all-men’s a cappella group Cadence.”
Johnson said he auditioned for “K-State Idol” again last year after his success as a freshman but did not make the competitive round. This year, Johnson said he will be performing “Jealous” by Labrinth for his “K-State Voice” audition.
“I feel like it’s easy for lots of people to relate to because it’s about heartbreak and lots of people went through that,” Johnson said.
The auditions are scheduled to start at 6 p.m. today in the Little Theatre of the K-State Student Union.
Courtney Nance, UPC Music Committee co-chair and junior in mass communications, said the committee spent the last three or four months planning for the event.
Last year when “American Idol” announced it would be going off the air, the UPC had to rebrand the competition, but this also presented an opportunity, Nance said.
“I think we just wanted to change it to focus on the student vocal performance,” Nance said.
Caleb Fenn, UPC Music Committee co-chair and junior in management, said it allowed the committee to approach the competition differently than it was able to previously.
“We really just wanted to focus on just the voice and not so much of a popularity contest,” Fenn said. “It was kind of a neat opportunity for us to have ‘American Idol’ going off the air so we could kind of go for something else.”
The committee received around 40 applications for auditions, according to both Nance and Fenn. Twenty were chosen to audition and nine will move on to the actual competition.
Applicants had to fill out forms and submit recorded audio of themselves performing, both Nance and Fenn said.
“The way we did it is kind of similar to ‘The Voice,'” Nance said. “If you sent in a video then we opened it and then closed it, just kind of minimized it so we could hear you. We didn’t want to see you because that was going against what our main goal of the whole thing was: to judge off the voice, not the person.”
