Sofronio Vasquez reacts to winning The Voice Tuesday night. (NBC Photo)
“This is what the show was named after. It was named after you: The Voice.”
Those were Michael Bublé’s words to Sofronio Vasquez after his four-chair turn blind audition performance.
At the time, it came across as a bit of over-the-top flattery from a Voice coach trying to convince a talented singer to join his team.
After all, at the time, Sofronio was only the second singer to perform on Season 26.
But the words turned out to be prophetic.
At the end of Tuesday night’s finale, Sofronio Vasquez was named The Voice for Season 26.
His teammate Shye finished second, followed by Sydney Sterlace in third place, Danny Joseph in fourth and Jeremy Beloate in fifth.
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Song by song grades for the Top 5 on The Voice
Meet Sofronio Vasquez
The triumph marks quite a change in fortune for the 32-year-old, who talked in his bio package about growing up in the slums in Mindanao, Philippines.
As a child, he shared one room with his parents and three siblings and had to go outside to use the bathroom.
He eventually became a dental student who also pursued music in the Philippines metro area.
In fact, 10 years ago, he auditioned for the Philippines version of The Voice.
He failed to turn a single chair, a story he shared with a TV station in Utica, N.Y., where he now lives.
Sofronio moved to the U.S. two years ago, settling in Utica because he’d found the community welcoming to refuges and immigrants.
A month ago, he performed the national anthem for the first time, before an AHL hockey game for the Utica Comets.
Last week, Utica Mayor Mike Galime unveiled #VoteSofronio street signs to help rally the community behind the talented singer.
Meanwhile, Sofronio kept right on dazzling every time he took The Voice stage.
His playoff performance of “Crying” has been viewed 1.5 million times on YouTube. None of his 19 playoffs competitors have half that many views.
Sofronio’s semifinal performance of “If I Can Dream” has been viewed more than 900,000 times on the site. None of his seven competitors that night have 250,000.
And when the results show began Tuesday night, Sofronio’s two performances from Monday’s show had more than 1 million views on YouTube. None of the other eight performances from Monday’s show had more than 111,000.
Sofronio said his Voice journey began when he randomly submitted a virtual audition just to see what happened.
The blind audition that followed boosted his confidence thanks to four chair turns and a shower of compliments from the show’s superstar judges.
Tuesday night, Sofronio was showered again.
In confetti this time as the Season 26 champ.
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5 Comments
Congratulations
Congrats to Sofronio!
My prediction had Danny in 5th place and Jeremy in 4th place, but I correctly predicted the top 3.
I hope Sofronio Vasquez gets the promotion he deserves.
“The Voice” has a bad track record of not supporting winners/runners up after the show’s finale.
Usually, it’s been finale, backstory of winner, exit interview, announce the coaches for the next season, have previous season’s winner singer appear at the next finale.
David Foster has been taking talent show singers on tour with him lately. Maybe Sofronio will wind up on one his tours.