Janis Eric Thommen has made an immediate impression on The Voice of Germany after delivering a French-language performance at the Blind Auditions. The 25-year-old singer performed Edith Piaf’s “Hymne à l’Amour” while accompanying himself on piano, prompting all four coaches to turn their chairs.
Thommen approached the performance with the confidence expected from a trained vocal coach. His rendition combined piano playing with a controlled vocal delivery, and he remained fully immersed in the song throughout the audition. The result was a four-chair turn and enthusiastic reactions from the coaching panel.
Shirin David praised Thommen’s high notes and described his voice as angelic, while Nico Santos called him a small jewel. The positive response also set up a contest between the coaches, with one of them using a block in an effort to prevent a rival from recruiting the singer. The episode does not disclose the outcome of that decision in the supplied information.
Behind Thommen’s assured stage presence is a difficult personal history. During his school years, the Swiss singer was bullied because he was overweight, and the repeated insults had a serious impact on him. He later experienced depression and spent a year in therapy while working to recover.
During that period, Thommen also changed his lifestyle and lost almost 40 kilograms. He has identified music as an important source of support, saying it helped lift his mood, bring him joy and strengthen his confidence. He is now professionally trained as a vocal coach and used the Blind Audition to demonstrate both his technical ability and his musical versatility.
The performance appears in the fourth episode of the 16th season of The Voice of Germany. The season airs on Fridays on SAT.1 and Saturdays on ProSieben, with episodes also available via livestream and after the television broadcast on Joyn.
