Middlebury's Taryn Papa competes on The Voice
Growing up in Middlebury, Connecticut, country singer-songwriter Taryn Papa, 31, loved playing the piano with her grandfather. He taught her his favorite music — Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. Papa played those same songs for her grandfather later when he suffered from Alzheimer's disease. It was the start of a budding music career.
Now, Papa is a contestant on NBC’s “The Voice” with singer Blake Shelton as a coach.
She learned about the show in 2011 and said she believes she’s auditioned for every season. For the blind audition that got her onto the show, Papa performed “Anyway” by Martina McBride, one of her favorite artists. Papa said she always knew which of the four coaches she wanted as a mentor. “It was always Blake,” she said. Papa lost in the first Battle Round of “The Voice,” but Shelton saved her. Papa performed Faith Hill’s “Cry” on Nov. 24 in a four-way knockout against other saved contestants to see which one out of the four will make it to the live shows. The winner of the knockouts will be revealed on Monday, Nov. 30.
Her experience is different from contestants of years past due to the pandemic. Singers can’t have much interaction with one another, and Papa spends most of her time in her hotel room. Plus, there’s no audience to sing to besides the judges.
“[Not] Having people in the room with you supporting you, that’s definitely one of the biggest challenges,” Papa said. “It really just falls on you and four awardwinning artists to be like, ‘Hey, that was great.’”
Papa had her first gig when she was still in school, singing the national anthem at Holy Cross High School in Waterbury. From there, she joined her uncle’s local band No Excuses in high school, performing at various venues around the state. When she turned 23, Papa moved to Nashville and began performing at Blake Shelton’s bar Ole Red. She said the city was completely different from Middlebury. “It’s such a small hometown feeling, and when I moved [to Nashville], you don’t really get that,” Papa said. “You feel like a small fish in a big pond.”
Since joining the show, Papa has recorded three new songs she hopes to release in January. After “The Voice” Papa plans to record a full-length album. One of her upcoming songs, “Dream Girl,” harkens back to her days as a kid in Middlebury. “At the beginning, she’s singing into a hairbrush in her mirror, which is very reminiscent of what I did,” Papa said.
Besides continuing her dream to win “The Voice,” Papa hopes to achieve one of her lifelong goals: a song on the radio. “And of course it’ll grow from there. It’ll never be enough,” Papa said. “Because then I’ll be like, ‘I want 10 on the radio and I want a Grammy.’ I want all these awesome validating things for my career.”
“The Voice” airs Monday and Tuesday nights at 8.