“Voice” appearance may open doors for Erika

Singer/songwriter will focus on motherhood and tv/film soundtracks

By Dan Hammock • March 7, 2017 10:00 pm
Aberdeen’s Ericka Corban, a native of Elma, prepares backstage for her blind audition on NBC’s The Voice, which aired Monday evening. While she didn’t get selected by one of the show’s coaches to continue on the show, she was exposed to more than 12 million people who tuned in to the popular singing competition and says she is grateful to have gotten as far as she did - more than 40,000 people auditioned for the show, Corban was one of fewer than a hundred to make it to air.
Aberdeen’s Ericka Corban, a native of Elma, prepares backstage for her blind audition on NBC’s The Voice, which aired Monday evening. While she didn’t get selected by one of the show’s coaches to continue on the show, she was exposed to more than 12 million people who tuned in to the popular singing competition and says she is grateful to have gotten as far as she did - more than 40,000 people auditioned for the show, Corban was one of fewer than a hundred to make it to air.

Her appearance on NBC’s “The Voice” was short-lived, but Aberdeen’s Ericka Corban is not disappearing from the music business anytime soon.

Corban’s 90-second blind audition may not have turned the coaches’ chairs, but it has exposed the Elma native to a wide and encouraging audience from all over the country.

“There’s been a lot of people reaching out from all over the country, being very supportive and encouraging,” she said Tuesday.

Corban belted out an impressive jazzy version of the old spiritual “Wade in the Water” for celebrity coaches Gwen Stefani, Blake Shelton, Adam Levine and Alicia Keys Monday evening, but none of the coaches selected her for their teams, eliminating her from the competition. More than 12 million people around the world tuned in to “The Voice” Monday evening.

The song, “definitely a difficult song” to perform, was chosen for her by the show’s producers, said Corban, adding, “it’s not really my style.”

As for the future, the entire “The Voice” experience has caused Corban to reflect on the future of her music career, seven years in the making.

“This was kind of a telling moment in my life, you could say. I think for now, while my kids are young I’m going to focus more on songwriting and getting placement in television and film and less on performing in concert.”

The wife and mother of four young children, who were on hand at the performance taping, was recently told her music would appear in the independent film “Denton Harbor,” which will premiere at a film festival in Boston this spring.

Corban admits she was a little disappointed by how her audition aired after editing. “I wish they would have left in, when Adam (Levine) first spun around, he said, ‘Your voice is beautiful, almost too beautiful,’ and Blake (Shelton) said if I had come a few hours earlier he would have picked me, but his team was already full of girls.”

She herself watched the episode at the D&R Theater in Aberdeen, which hosted a free viewing party. She wrote of the turnout of 500 people on social media, calling it “the biggest group hug EVER!”

She has no real regrets from the experience.

“It is what it is. I’m so thankful for the opportunity and thankful for the doors it has opened and will continue to open going forward,” said Corban. “And I’m thankful I even made it that far. A lot of people try and don’t get anywhere near as far.” More than 40,000 people tried out for this season of “The Voice,” and Corban was among the 90 or so who made it to the blind auditions.