Two Houston singers battle to reach finals of ‘La Voz Kids’
Two Houston children will be showcasing their voices on Sunday, hoping to earn spots in the finals of “La Voz Kids,” a popular TV talent show on Telemundo.
The series, now in its fourth season, is a take-off on the hit NBC show “The Voice.” Like that program, children on “La Voz Kids” sing to judges/ coaches whose backs are turned. When the judges hear a voice they’d like to work with, they turn their chair to see the contestant. If more than one judge turns around, the singer chooses whom he or she wants to work with.
José Ulloa, 10, and Magallie Montiel, 13, each compelled some chairs to swivel during the blind auditions and have been singing their way through the subsequent rounds. Now, they’re on the verge of the show’s season finale, when a winner will be crowned.
But first, they need to sing past the semifinals at 7 p.m. Sunday on Telemundo, which pits Ulloa and Montiel against 10 other young singers. Six of those singers will move on to the finals, which airs on July 10. The overall winner will receive a cash prize of $50,000 for his/ her education and a recording contract with Universal Music.
Ulloa, a fifth-grade student at Kennedy Elementary School, says that he is “feeling very happy for still being here, but a little sad at the same time because many friends I have made here have left the competition.”
Talking about her experience during the competition, which is taking place at Universal Studios in Orlando, Fla., Montiel says she has learned “a lot about interpretation.”
She says that her coach in the show, Natalia Jiménez, a Spanish singer and ex-leader of the pop band “La 5ª Estación,” told her that “to make people feel what you are singing, you have to show expressions with your face, with your voice.”
“We work so hard!” says Montiel an eigth-grade student at Meyerland Performing and Visual Arts Middle School in Houston. “We try to memorize the songs and (work on) perfecting them; we have to feel it, and if it is a happy song or a sad song, you may have to put out all your emotions, because if you are not feeling it, then you can’t express yourself and people don’t see a good singer then.”
Ulloa and Montiel have been singing mostly Mexican folk music, such as “rancheras,” during their appearances on “La Voz Kids.”
Even though Ulloa is coached by Puerto Rican singer and producer Daddy Yankee, a pioneer of the reggaeton genre who received the Latin Billboard Industry Leader Award 2016, the young singer says he chooses to sing regional Mexican music “because it’s the genre that my voice prefers.”
Ulloa, who says Daddy Yankee calls him his “rancherito,” is prepared for the competition this Sunday and asks everybody to “please vote for us. Help us during this stage (of the competition) where the votes count so much. I will give it all of myself to stay until the end.”