Ravinia 2019, Issue 6, Week 11

an academic background. at’s why I always thought I’d do something in medicine.” Nevertheless, the Yale student began fusing his classical training with a decidedly modern musical skill—beat- boxing. He started a YouTube channel for fun, and one of his videos went viral: “Julie-O,” his own unique take on a piece composed by the Turtle Island Quartet cellist Mark Summer. Meanwhile, three of the Pentatonix members had been heading toward their destiny together. Baritone Scott Hoy- ing, soprano Kirstin Maldonado, and tenor Mitch Grassi were schoolmates in Arlington, TX, singing together in choir and musical theater. ( ey’re very close in age, although Grassi was one grade behind Hoying and Maldonado.) While in high school, they made a small splash with their version of the Lady Gaga–Be- yoncé hit “Tele- phone.” en Hoying went to USC, where he met one Ben Bram—a musician and arranger who was working on e Sing-O . Bram encouraged the trio to audition for the show, but he advised ex- panding. ey needed a bass voice and soon found Avi Kaplan to ll that role (he le the group amicably in , to be replaced by Matt Sallee). But Bram was looking for one more element to round out the sound: a beatboxer. It was a virtual version of “right place, right time” for Olusola, then known online as the Beatbox Cellist. “When they saw that [‘Julie-O’] vid- eo,” he recalls, “they had already gone through ve or six di erent beatboxers. ey decided, ‘ at’s the guy we need!’ “ ey tried to contact me in vari- ous ways, like through Facebook,” he continues. “Ben Bram called me; I hung up on him. I didn’t think it was real. I’ll never forget it. He said, ‘I’m Ben Bram from Sing-O . We’re thinking of adding you to the TV show.’ I was like, ‘Okay, thanks,’ and I hung up. “Eventually I got a message from Scott. To be honest, I decided to do it [audition with them] only because I thought it would help my medical-school application. I did not think this was going to be a career. Straight up!” So, two weeks a er he graduated from Yale, Olusola ew out to LA to meet the other future members of Pen- tatonix, just one day before their TV au- dition. “And then, the rest is history: We actually made the TV show; we won the TV show,” he says. “It started to become a career. I was confused about why I was here, but now I absolutely love it. I’m so thankful I get to do this on a daily basis.” e Sing-O title came with a , check and a Sony recording contract. e latter prize quickly evaporated, but the real reward from the show was the potential springboard to ongoing 22 RAVINIA MAGAZINE | AUGUST 12 – AUGUST 25, 2019