ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Adi Arora stuns John Legend on ‘The Voice’
Millburn, New Jersey native earned two chair turns after performing Bruno Mars’ “It Will Rain” during blind auditions.
-
Malvika Choudhary - Thu, 05, Mar 2026
- 14:19 EST
- 26
Adi Arora / The Voice
An Indian American student secured a spot on NBC’s singing competition The Voice after a blind audition that earned praise from two coaches.
Adi Arora, a Cornell University student from Millburn, New Jersey, performed Bruno Mars’ song “It Will Rain” during the March 2 episode of Season 29, titled “Battle of Champions,” turning the chairs of coaches John Legend and Kelly Clarkson.
Also Read: PM Modi got better deal, says Mary Millben on India–U.S. trade talks
Impressed Legend was the first coach to turn his chair during Arora’s performance, with Clarkson following shortly afterward. Third coach, Adam Levine did not turn his chair, later saying he “got hung up on little things with pitch,” though he still complimented the performance.
Legend ultimately secured Arora for his team.
“I loved your tone,” Legend told Arora during the audition, adding that the performance showed he “really thinks consciously about your tone.”
The audition also highlighted a shared musical background between the two. Both Arora and Legend previously performed in collegiate a cappella groups—Legend at the University of Pennsylvania and Arora at Cornell.
At Cornell, Arora has been involved with the university’s all-male a cappella group Last Call A Cappella, where he served as music director. In that role, he arranged and conducted multi-part vocal performances and led rehearsals for the ensemble.
Outside of music, Arora is pursuing a bachelor of arts degree in mathematics and computer science at Cornell with a minor in business. His academic work includes research in natural language processing and large language models as part of the Cornell Natural Language Processing Group.
He has also held internships in artificial intelligence and software engineering with companies including Sprinklr and Commvault.
Season 29 of The Voice features a three-coach format for the first time in the show’s history, with returning coaches John Legend, Kelly Clarkson and Adam Levine—all previous winners on the program.
Discover more at New India Abroad.
Related
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
E Paper
Video
Comments
Start the conversation
Become a member of New India Abroad to start commenting.
Sign Up Now
Already have an account? Login