Singer from Rio Rico makes waves on Mexico’s ‘The Voice’ | Local News Stories

“Go for it,” his father responded at the time.

Several months and a barrage of auditions later, Orellana was in. When he received the news, he was traveling in Culiacan, Sinaloa; he called his parents in Rio Rico.

“Pure screams,” he grinned, recalling his mother’s reaction.

The journey has taken years of endeavors – studying guitar, transferring schools to pursue music, singing on the streets of Nogales, Sonora.

For Orellana, the months spent living, filming and singing in Mexico City were, as he put it, “a dream turned into reality.”

A ‘fast but slow’ process

To perform on La Voz – the Mexican counterpart to the United States’ The Voice – Orellana waded through several rounds of auditions, belting Ed Sheeran lyrics over a Zoom call before flying down to Mexico City multiple times.

There, Orellana reached his final audition: performing three songs for a panel of judges. There were cameras, too, filming the high-stakes callback, but Orellana focused instead on connecting with his audience.

“I said, ‘I’m going to sing to the people,’” he told the NI earlier this month. “They’re people.”

Orellana was no stranger to live performance; since he was a teenager, he’s been singing at restaurants and venues in Southern Arizona. In 2015, he soared through several episodes on the hit competition series, “Tengo Talento, Mucho Talento,” drawing praise from famed singers like Ana Barbara and Luis Coronel, who judged the season.

And, sometimes, the endeavors were met with rejection. Once, he’d auditioned for The Voice in the United States, driving 10 hours to Reno, Nev. for his shot. That year, he wasn’t accepted.

But in the AcunMedya headquarters in Mexico City, Orellana launched into his third song of the audition: a guitar cover of Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman.”

That’s when he noticed the producers were snapping their fingers and swaying to the beat.

“I said, ‘I did it. I did it,’” Orellana smiled. “When I saw they began to follow the rhythm and all of that, I felt a peace.”

The producers interrupted Orellana mid-song – but for good reason.

Participating on La Voz required some schedule changes: Orellana was told to set aside three months to live and work in Mexico City. There, he spent his days doing interviews, singing contests, and, he added, trying not to get a cold.

About 300 artists participated in the season – singers scattered throughout Mexico. Orellana, he said, didn’t meet any fellow Rio Ricans.

He did, however, come across artists from Nogales, Sonora, Hermosillo and Guaymas – sometimes, he ran into friends and acquaintances.

“People that knew my family,” Orellana grinned. “It was like, ‘Hey, I know your cousin!’”

For Orellana, an only child, working alongside hundreds of artists fostered a sense of community. Each evening, when the cameras were no longer rolling, they gathered in large groups to sing and play instruments – pure improvisation, Orellana said. Early on, he jumped into the group jam sessions, volunteering his own renditions of flamenco songs.

While La Voz is, by definition, a competition, Orellana described solidarity among the contestants.

“It’s like when you find your herd,” he added. “Like wolves, you know?”

When he was about 4 years old, Orellana said, he heard a song on the radio that introduced him to the possibility of becoming a singer – Vicente Fernandez’s “Volver Volver.”

At the time, Orellana was living near Los Angeles, and already, he was enamored with mariachi. He admired the harmony of the instruments – the violin, the trumpets, the massive guitarrón. He wanted to learn the song, to perform it for his family.

“Something happened,” he added.

Later on, his parents decided to leave California and raise Orellana somewhere quieter. They chose Rio Rico – somewhere close to his mother’s hometown of Nogales, Sonora.

Growing up, Orellana pursued music, performing in an elementary jazz band before moving on to Rio Rico High School. There, he studied rondalla, a genre involving various string instruments, common in Mexico.

Then, he heard about the Mariachi Apache, a student musical group at Nogales High School.

“It was difficult,” he said, “because Rio Rico is very different from Nogales.”

But while spending a semester at NHS, he learned the essences of traditional mariachi rhythms – bolero, huapango, son jalisciense.

While he revered mariachi, Orellana soon began practicing new genres and singing in new languages. He listened to the crooning of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Nat King Cole to sing more fluidly in English.

Later, he snagged a gig at Toscanos, an Italian restaurant in Nogales, Sonora. There, he worked on a third language, studying the voices of Luciano Pavoratti and José Carreras; tenors, like him.

“I began to practice and practice,” he remembered.

Under the encouragement of his father, however, he attempted to build other possible career paths, studying business administration at Cochise Community College. That worked – for a while – but he remained drawn to music as a full-time career.

While Orellana has traveled to pursue his singing career, he’s also remained local. The singer performs each Friday at Caracu, a steakhouse in Nogales, and spends weekends performing at Stables Ranch Grille on the Tubac Golf Resort.

And while Orellana said he hopes to continue traveling and expanding his career, Rio Rico is home – a base for him and his family.

“To have a place in the world in that you can say, ‘This is my little piece of land.’” he said. “This is where my roots are.”

La Voz – and Ivan’s audition – are available on TV Azteca’s website, and recaps are available on the series’ official Facebook page.