Angelae Marie Nunes Wins the 2014 KU Voice

By Josue Hernandez

The KU Voice, a competition where Kean students get to show off their singing talent. 16 competitors having a sing off for the pride to call themselves the KU Voice winner of 2014; it was 20 year old junior, Angelae Nunes who won the competition.

“I was surprised that I won,” said Nunes, “the competition was fun and nerve wrecking at the same time because I had to sing songs that I wasn’t prepared for with people that I didn’t know and I was surprised because the other finalist was very good.”

Nunes, who likes to be called “Angie”, entered the competition because she found out about it through as friend.  She was tagged in a post on the Kean Instagram about KU Voice and Nunes instantly got excited and decided to take on this opportunity.

Nunes is from Elizabeth, NJ, and has been going to Kean since 2012.  Angie is currently majoring in Biology and hopes to one day be working in the line of dentistry.  Not only that, but it is her dream to become a professional singer, just not right now.

“Singing is both a passion and a hobby of mine,” said Nunes, “It’s something I love doing but I can’t dedicate myself full-time because my feet are stuck to the ground and focused on school.”

The competition consisted of 16 singers, all singing for the grand prize.  The winner of the competition received a brand new Apple MacBook laptop and Nunes took it home it with her.  Little did she know was that there was another prize that is added with the new laptop.  That prize is to sing the National Anthem at Homecoming on Oct. 25.  Nunes was surprised, yet very honored when she found out that she will have to sing the anthem for such a huge event.

“I am very excited but also nervous to sing at Homecoming,” said Nunes, “I am honored to sing and to take on this responsibility, I just hope I don’t get too nervous that I will forget the lyrics.”

Even with the nervous jitters in her, Nunes is sure that she will do well singing the anthem based on her experience.  It wouldn’t be the first time she will perform in front of a huge crowd.  At the age of 13, Nunes competed in Eurovision, which is a competition in Europe.  She came out as top 12 of the contestants that were from Portugal.  Besides KU Voice and the Eurovision competition, Nunes has also performed in other small singing competitions outside of school.

Ku Voice was held in the Little Theatre in the University Center on Wednesday, Oct. 1^st.  It was hosted by the Kean Expedition and as well as the organizer.  Danielle Ford was one the people who were involved in putting this competition together.

“We put this together so we can engage with the students and the pop culture and to build a sense of community.” said Ford.

Now, it wouldn’t be the first time that the University held this competition.  This is actually the second year that the KU Voice was held.

“It was a bigger crowd last year, but the competition seemed about the same,” said Ford.  “We hope we can continue with KU Voice next year and years after, but we can’t guarantee that it will happen again just yet.”

The competition was tough, since both finalists, including Nunes, has to go to overtime since the crowd couldn’t choose a winner.  So all the pressure laid on the judge’s decision to see who won the sing off, and it was Nunes who came out on top.

“The competition was tough,” said Kerrin Lyles, who participated as one of the judges.  “Everyone was talented and there was no gap in between each contestant, so it made it harder for us as the judges to say “no” to a contestant. We decided on Angie because we looked at it based on the overall combination from all the rounds and we looked at the entire body of work from all the rounds.”

The KU Voice was a success again this year and Nunes hopes and believes that the competition will continue.

“I believe that the KU Voice will come back next year,” says Nunes.  “It’s a great competition and I am glad that I entered and competed in this competition because I am usually self-conscious about my singing and winning gave me a little bit more confidence and motivation to keep singing and enter other competitions outside of school.”

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