Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Season 5 of The Voice begins Monday night at 8 p.m. on NBC. Check back for live blogs during each show and for bios of contestants who land a spot in the competition.

Meanwhile, it’s time to catch up with some familiar faces from past seasons, with the focus on those who have released music recently. Cathia of Bronx, N.Y., was 19 and a student at Pace University when she auditioned for The Voice.

Before The Voice: Cathia is a graduate of the LaGuardia Performing Arts School (the “Fame” school) and had performed at the Apollo Theatre and Carnegie Hall before appearing on the show. She also had served an internship at a New York recording studio. She told The Voice her mother moved to the United States from El Salvador at age 19 to provide a better life for her daughters.

On The Voice: Cathia auditioned with “No Me Doy Por Vencido,” singing the entire song in Spanish and landed on Team Shakira. She lost in the battle round to Mary Miranda, but wound up being stolen by Usher and advanced all the way to the live playoffs (top 16) before being eliminated.

Since The Voice: Cathia raised more than $5,500 toward a debut album this summer through an indiegogo campaign that had a goal of $25,000. But she hardly sounded disappointed in a thank you video she posted to her Facebook page on Aug. 26, saying “I’m so excited that now we can move forward and really start kicking it into high gear for the album.” She thanked her fans for their contributions in both English and Spanish and promised updates on the album and her next single. The first, which you can hear below, is called “Without You” and was released on June 22.

Keeping up with Cathia: On Twitter, she is @cathiasings. She just revamped her website. And here are the links for Facebook and her YouTube channel.

Cathia, “Without You”