Bok cheers on his sweet Caroline
IN SUNDAY’S penultimate episode of The Voice SA Blind Auditions, seven acts made the cut into the four coaches’ teams in total, including Caroline-Grace Brüssow – the wife of Springbok rugby player, Heinrich Brüssow, – who was in the audience cheering her on!
Caroline-Grace, 28, an attorney from Bloemfontein, flew in for The Voice auditions all the way from Osaka, Japan, where she and Henrich live for six months of the year due to his rugby obligations there.
Her powerful rendition of Céline Dion’s Loved Me Back to Life landed her a spot on #TeamBobby, so now it looks like rugby will have to take a back seat for her in 2017.
“You’re such a small lady but with such a huge voice. Well done on pulling off such a massive song,” Bobby van Jaarsveld congratulated Caroline-Grace.
This was the only singer to land up on Van Jaarsveld’s team on the night, but #TeamKahn scored big, with the Parlotones’s frontman bagging three new acts.
The first performance that made Kahn Morbee’s ears prick up was that of the second duo of the season, known as Symphony.
Charl Esterhuizen, 20, and 27year-old Christopher Mabasa met one evening, when Esterhuizen walked into a bar and saw Mabasa performing Footloose at a karaoke. Esterhuizen started singing karaoke with Mabasa that night – and the rest was history.
The pair has been performing ever since in and around Emalahleni, where Mabasa lives with the Esterhuizens as an adopted member of their family.
Their rendition of Jason Mraz’s I’m Yours secured them a spot on #TeamKahn and a pass into the battle rounds of the competition.
Morbee also bagged a big fish after a brilliant performance that warranted four chair turns from all of the coaches. Craig Lucas, 24, from Cape Town is a graduate in Economics and Politics at UCT, but despite a promising career ahead of him in the corporate world, Lucas has always had a secret passion for singing.
He made a promise to his mother that he would finish his degree first before venturing into music, and boldly took the plunge to come to The Voice SA, despite never having sung in front of so many people before.
His blistering version of The Animals’ House of the Rising Sun was so good that the coaches could not stop enthusing about it. “You gripped us from the first note, and just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, you just kept taking us higher and higher,” raved Lira.
Despite desperate pleas from all of the coaches to join their teams, Lucas ultimately chose Morbee.
Qualified occupational therapist Christy-Lyn Marais, 28, from Bergvliet in Cape Town, has been playing musical instruments – and singing – since she was in primary school, but has decided that her passion for music needs to take priority. She came to The Voice SA with her harp in tow to perform the haunting ballad Scarborough Fair – made famous by Simon and Garfunkel.
Morbee instantly heard a classical quality in Marais’s voice and turned his chair for her.
As the rest of the coaches turned after her performance, they were all incredibly surprised to see that she was playing the harp – while singing.
“This is far out, girl!” Karen Zoid exclaimed when she saw Marais’s harp on the stage, while Morbee told her that he was thrilled to add a classical voice to his eclectic team.
Soulful songstress Lira also added two talents to her team. Fulltime musician and voice-over artist Spha Mdlalose, 28, from Cape Town impressed Lira with a jazzy rendition of the Aretha Franklin classic Say A Little Prayer.
“I want you. I HAVE to have you on my team,” Lira told an elated Mdlalose.
The second talent to secure themselves a spot on Lira’s team tonight was another 28-year-old from Johannesburg.
Bryce MacMillan is an audio engineer and DJ whose soulful version of Ne*Yo’s So Sick was good enough for Lira to press her buzzer almost immediately.
Samantha Leonard, 24, from Kimberly ended the show off with a bang. Her rip-roaring rendition of Jessie J, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj’s smash hit Bang Bang, had all four of the coaches pressing their buzzers, but had her heart set on one coach from the very beginning, and that was Zoid.
With only one round of Blind Auditions to go next week before the Battle Rounds commence, the coaches’ teams are almost full.
Lira and Morbee both currently have 10 vocalists on their teams, Zoid has nine singers in her stable and Van Jaarsveld leads the pack with 11 talent, meaning that there is only one spot left in his team, as each team can only accommodate 12 singers in total.