Meet and hear more from Daniel Passino of The Voice Season 10

The Voice

Meet and hear more from Daniel Passino of The Voice Season 10

March 12, 2016 By Mark Franklin 0

His audition: Daniel Passino, 21, of New Boston, Mich., auditioned with Charlie Puth’s “Marvin Gaye.” His solid vocal prompted an early chair turn from Christina Aguilera. Blake Shelton also turned at the last moment, praising Daniel for a falsetto note he hit near the end of the performance. Daniel decided to join Team Christina.

His background: When he was 8, Daniel said his mom bought a Christina Aguilera album. “I would practice singing ‘Beautiful,'” Daniel recalls. “And she was telling her friends one day, ‘He sounds just like Christina.’ I’m like, ‘Mom, I’m a boy; no I don’t.” All that said, Daniel said he was more into sports than music as a child. Then in middle school, his dad encouraged him to learn the trumpet. His older brother played the tuba and his younger brother also learned the trumpet. “We were kind of our own little brass section,” Daniel says. He was returning from band camp one day when he director heard him singing on the bus and encouraged him to continue. He wound up studying opera at the University of Michigan School of Music. “I wish they had a master’s degree in Justin Timberlake and Michael Jackson. They are the epitome of music and performance. That’s what I want to be like one day.”

What the show didn’t show:

Daniel became vocal performance major at the University of Michigan.

At Michigan, he’s a member of the choir, an upper-level choir called the Orpheus Singers, the men’s glee club and an a cappella group there called The Friars.

As part of that glee club, he’s performed — and done solos — at the Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall and the Mormon Tabernacle.

On Facebook, he lists his musical influences as Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Chris Brown and, yep, Marvin Gaye.

He describes himself there as a pop/R&B singer, but he admits he’s done very little solo performing in that vein. He notes that he hails from the Midwest, “and we don’t really have like that big-market vibe.”

Instead, he’s been studying classical music in college. Daniel explained in a conference call with the media. “If you want to be a pop singer, all music basically originated from Baroque style music, classical music, so I thought it would be important to learn how to properly sing, how to properly breathe, and how to properly act and do all of these things. That’s why I decided to study classical music.”

That, he said, is one reason his blind audition was so special. “That was really something very new to me, and it was so exciting to kind of get up there and do what all of your idols have done, like Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake. And you kind of get to be who you’ve always wanted to be. ”

He lists his musical influences there as Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Chris Brown and, yep, Marvin Gaye.

On iTunes: Just his performance from The Voice.

Keeping up with Daniel:
Twitter: @danielpassino
Facebook

“Sherry” (with the Friars)