Amherst resident Michelle Chamuel is one of six acts left standing in "The Voice."
Michelle Chamuel, who lives in Amherst, is one of six left in the latest round in "The Voice." AMHERST – Michelle Chamuel, who moved back "home" to Amherst last year, will have a lot of area people rooting for her when she takes the stage tonight on NBC’s the “Voice.”
Last week, Chamuel, who has struggled to overcome stage fright, earned one of six top positions in the competition. The show airs Monday and Tuesday nights.The field of competitors will be cut to four on Tuesday night. The show airs at 8 p.m.
Chamuel, 27, first moved to Amherst in 2002 with her mother, Dr. Joalie Davie, and spent her junior year at Amherst Regional High School before moving back to Wellesley because of a music technology program in the high school there. She graduated from Wellesley High School in 2004.
But Davie said Amherst exposed her daughter to the joy of performance.
Chamuel said Amherst also “opened my eyes to a different sense of community.”
Her mother said she liked the diversity the town offered. Davie stayed here for four years and moved to Santa Fe, where she founded and is the director of Health From Within, a center for health, healing, wellness, stress reduction and community
Chamuel moved back to the area in 2012 after her Michigan band, Ella Riot, broke up.
“I wanted to move home, back to Amherst,” she said. She shares living space with three “awesome roommates” friends from Wellesley High who moved out here to live with her. She also works at Woodstar Café in Northampton and praised the food there and the staff for supporting her.
Chamuel had stage fright when she was young. In an oral theory class at the University of Michigan, where she went to college, she couldn’t sing. The professor told her “if you don't sing, you’re going to fail.”
They worked out a deal that allowed her to sing in the hallway outside the classroom. It worked. It was from the hallway that she could hear the class clapping.
She has worked through that fright and said performing sometimes means pushing through it. She has also the experience of performing for five years first with a band called Sidera and then Ella Riot.
With her career and the show, she said “I take it one day at a time…(when it comes) to expectations and hopes.”
She called working with mega-star Usher, her team leader, “amazing." "He’s incredible. He leads by example,” she said.
Rolling Stone magazine meanwhile reported that Chamuel “pretty much stole the show with a stripped-down version of Bruno Mars' "Grenade,” which she performed recently.
The magazine reported that “of all the contestants, she's grown the most so far – each week her voice sounds stronger and her confidence builds. She's definitely the dark horse of the race.”
Sunderland's Michelle Brooks-Thompson competed on the popular show as did Shutesbury native Naia Kete.