‘I might be blind, but I’ve got my eye on Guy!’

This contestant wants to be known for her singing – not her blindness

Singing teacher Julee-anne Bell has spent 28 years helping her students find their voice – now she’s ready to let her own shine as she takes to The Voice stage. Born completely blind, Julee-anne fell in love with performing at age five, when she sang at her school concert, and she loved it so much, her dad had to carry her off the stage! “Once I heard my voice in the microphone that was it!” says Julee-anne. “That feeling of being on stage was so exciting and it’s never gone away.”

The 48-year-old turned to music for strength when her family’s Queensland home was hit by the devastating floods in 2011.

“We lost all our family photos and the bottom level of our home,” Julee-anne recalls. “It was very traumatic... but music helped me through, it’s such a wonderful medium for communicating and for expression.”

While her journey to The Voice stage happened by accident – JuleeAnne was helping a friend fill out the application form when her husband Thomas, 48, encouraged her to apply – the classically trained singer is keen to impress the panel of “musical royalty”.

Performing Climb Every Mountain – which is the same song Guy sang in his Australian Idol audition – Julee-anne jokes she “may as well have a sign above her head saying, ‘I’m picking Guy!’”

She admits, “I’ve always liked Guy – he’s got such a flawless vocal technique.”

For Julee-anne, the blind auditions are an opportunity for her to showcase her talent, without the focus being on her disability.

“I want people with all kinds of disabilities to be seen on television, so that young people can see themselves in media,” she says.

“I just happen to be blind, that’s a part of my character but I don’t want to make it more important than it is.”