Caroline Burns, a fifteen-year-old Hollis resident and former HBHS and HBMS student now being home schooled, used her immense vocal talent to impress all of the coaches on The Voice on October 5.

The Voice is a televised vocal competition like no other, and getting in is extremely difficult. After a series of auditions and interviews, Burns was able to finally put her singing to the test on stage in front of millions of people. However, there is a catch. The coaches, Blake Shelton, Adam Levine, Gwen Stefani, and Pharrell, are unable to see the singer because their chairs face away from the stage. Therefore, they have no way to “judge a book by its cover.”

These blind auditions are unique to The Voice, making the show especially fun to watch. Once a singer steps onto the stage, they belt it out and do anything to make a chair turn in their favor.

Burns says she has been singing “since [she] was a baby, basically.” After publishing her first YouTube video for her grandparents in 2007, she has rapidly become a hit. Her videos have been viewed thousands and even hundreds of thousands of times, by both New Hampshire locals and people from all corners of the country.

Soon after posting her first couple videos, Burns was contacted (at age 11) by The Voice Kids, The show unfortunately was never able to air and now, because so much time has passed, she is too old to participate in The Voice Kids, but is just old enough to be on The Voice.

At age 15, Burns is the youngest age eligible to audition for The Voice, making the audition alone a huge feat to overcome. When she stepped onto the stage, she had no idea what to expect; whether a chair would turn or not was out of her hands at that point. With three out of four of the judges’ teams full, and only one spot left, Burns sang her heart out to try and get Pharrell, the only coach with a potential spot for Caroline, to push his button.

Burns presented a beautiful rendition of Christina Perri’s “A Thousand Years,” and made all of the judges wish that they had a space left on their teams for her unique voice. Burns was unaware before she stepped out that all but one of the teams were full, and was admittedly a little disappointed when no one turned around. But she also stated that, “It definitely made me feel better when I found out there was only one space left.”

Because Pharrell’s team only had one spot left, he did not accept her because he already had  singers with similar voices on his team. However, when all of the coaches turned around, they pleaded with Burns to come back and audition again, promising a turn.

Burns said that she is hoping to audition for season 10 of The Voice which will air in February of 2016.

Images from NBC: found in this article.