Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Korin Bukowski performs “All I Want” during the knockout round on The Voice as Summer Schappell looks on. (NBC Photo)

Korin Bukowski arrived at The Voice blind auditions with virtually no experience as a solo artist.

And she barely made it onto the show, getting just one coach — Gwen Stefani — to turn a chair for her cover of “Cecilia and the Satellite.”

Flash forward one month, and the college student from Miami is bound for the live playoffs. She’ll be just one of 20 singers to make it that far and just one of five representing Team Gwen.

How did she do it? What’s been the secret to her success?

“I have no idea,” she says in typical Korin Bukowski fashion. “I mean, I took some like theater classes in college that may have helped, but I really have no idea.

“I think I just go on auto pilot when I go up there. So the song just kind of comes out and I try and put emotion into it as much as I can. I’m glad it has been paying off to this degree. I didn’t expect it.”

Her latest triumph came during a knockout round match this week when she was pitted against country singer Summer Schappell. Korin sang “All I Want” by Kodaline and turned in what was easily her best vocal performance to date.

It all adds up to one of the feel-good stories of The Voice Season 9. In her pre-Voice interview, Korin talked about how she was always regarded as being “a little off” growing up and endured bullying throughout high school, from both students and staff.

The Voice has helped, Korin says. She calls the experience “a confidence booster, for sure.” Give a big assist to her coach, Gwen Stefani.

“Gwen is someone who built her career on being different and not caring what other people said, and she has been very successful with that,” points out Korin, who turned 21 the day her battle round victory aired on TV.

“So it has helped me to just kind of accept some of the little, you know, differences that I have that I haven’t fully accepted or embraced yet. She has been very helpful, very encouraging and very celebratory of everything I have been doing.”

Has it been easy for Korin to change her self-image?

“Oh, not at all,” she admits. “I’ve never been the kind of person that could look at myself in like a very like great light. I don’t know; I’m just very self-deprecating. But it’s definitely — I’ve definitely gotten better.”

On Twitter, she still describes herself as “a professional numnut who sings from time to time.”

Yep, sings very, very well as it turns out.

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