50 Fun Facts About Pentatonix

Pentatonix's five original members first met as a complete group at what point ahead of their Sing-Off audition?

The day before was all the time the full line-up had, because the show wanted groups of five or more and the trio had to recruit two strangers. They won the whole season anyway.

Kevin Olusola caught Pentatonix's eye with a viral video of himself beatboxing while playing which instrument?

Cello and beatboxing at once is a style Kevin Olusola calls celloboxing, and his 2011 clip of the piece Julie-O went viral. Scott Hoying saw it and asked him to join.

Pentatonix won its first Grammy for an a cappella medley of songs by which French electronic duo?

Daft Punk got the tribute in a 2013 video that drew ten million views in its first week. The arrangement made Pentatonix the first a cappella act to win the Grammy for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella.

Pentatonix won a country Grammy for an a cappella version of which song, recorded with its writer Dolly Parton?

Jolene earned Dolly Parton a Grammy more than four decades after she first released it, having been nominated for the same song twice in the 1970s without winning. Pentatonix also sang it with her and Miley Cyrus on The Voice.

Scott Hoying and Mitch Grassi of Pentatonix launched which comedy and music YouTube channel as a duo?

Superfruit began after the two sat in an IHOP planning separate channels and decided to share one instead. Hoying says the name came from his bandmate's random mind.

In the film Pitch Perfect 2, Pentatonix appears as the a cappella team representing which country?

Canada was the flag Pentatonix sang under at the film's world championship, even though every member is American. The 2015 cameo set them against the Barden Bellas.

Pentatonix's hit cover of Hallelujah, filmed in the Mojave Desert, is a song written by which singer-songwriter?

Leonard Cohen first released the song in 1984 and watched other singers turn it into a standard. He died seventeen days after Pentatonix put out its version in October 2016.

Pentatonix's 2019 recording of Do You Hear What I Hear? features archive vocals from which late singer?

Whitney Houston recorded the carol in 1987 for the album A Very Special Christmas, and her vocal was set inside a new Pentatonix arrangement seven years after her death.

Pentatonix finished third on the ninth season of The Masked Singer performing under which costume name?

California Roll put all five singers in costumes of their own, which made Pentatonix the largest group contestant the show had seen. They reached the semi-finals before being unmasked.

Which 2014 Pentatonix album became the highest-charting holiday album by a group in more than fifty years?

That's Christmas to Me peaked at number two and passed a million sales by the end of the year, when only three albums of any genre had sold more. Its title track is the one original song on it.

Pentatonix's three founding singers were schoolmates at Martin High School in which Texas city?

Arlington gave the trio its start when a cover they entered in a local radio contest lost but won over their school. Two of them later quit college to audition for The Sing-Off.

Pentatonix won the third season of The Sing-Off in 2011 on which American television network?

NBC aired the a cappella contest, whose winners took $200,000 and a recording contract. The label dropped Pentatonix soon afterwards, so the group built its audience online instead.

Which original Pentatonix member left the group in 2017, citing the strain of touring far from family?

Avi Kaplan sang his last Pentatonix show at a Vermont fair in September 2017 and then turned to folk music. He had put out his first solo songs months earlier as Avriel & the Sequoias.

Which Berklee-trained singer joined Pentatonix in 2017 as the group's new bass vocalist?

Matt Sallee started singing at four in the choir of the Maryland church where his father was pastor, and at college he joined the a cappella group Pitch Slapped. His first Pentatonix recordings were for a deluxe holiday reissue.

Pentatonix was the opening act on which American Idol winner's 2015 tour, cut short for vocal rest?

Kelly Clarkson brought Pentatonix back out during her own set to sing Heartbeat Song with her. Her doctors then ordered vocal rest, and the remaining Piece by Piece Tour dates were cancelled.

Pentatonix teamed with which violinist on a prize-winning cover of the Imagine Dragons song Radioactive?

Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix won Response of the Year for the 2013 video at the first YouTube Music Awards. She worked with the group again in 2014 on the EP PTX, Vol. III.

Pentatonix's second Grammy honored its arrangement of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, a piece by which composer?

Tchaikovsky gave the fairy's dance in The Nutcracker to the celesta, a keyboard with a bell-like tone that Pentatonix had to imitate with voices alone.

Which cover from Pentatonix's 2014 holiday album debuted and peaked at number 26 on the Billboard Hot 100?

Mary, Did You Know? grew out of questions Mark Lowry scripted for his church's Christmas program in 1984, and its music came seven years later. Pentatonix's version topped Billboard's Holiday Digital Songs chart.

Scott Hoying of Pentatonix finished tenth in 2025 on which television competition series?

Dancing with the Stars paired him with professional Rylee Arnold for its thirty-fourth season, and they lasted into the sixth week. During the run he announced that he and his husband were expecting their first child.

Kirstin Maldonado of Pentatonix made her Broadway debut in 2018 playing Lauren in which musical?

Kinky Boots put her on stage beside singer Jake Shears and comedian Wayne Brady. She had studied musical theatre on a full scholarship before leaving college to form Pentatonix.

Pentatonix beatboxer Kevin Olusola finished his pre-med requirements at which Ivy League university?

Yale is where a pre-med mentor told Kevin Olusola that medicine would always be there if music failed. He graduated in 2011 and met his future bandmates within two weeks.

Kevin Olusola showed off his fluency in which language when Pentatonix guested on an overseas edition of The Sing-Off?

Mandarin came from two spells of study in Beijing during his college years. On the Chinese show the group also covered Tian Mi Mi, a song made famous by Teresa Teng.

Pentatonix founder Scott Hoying heard about The Sing-Off through SoCal VoCals, his a cappella group at which university?

USC is where Scott Hoying was studying popular music performance when a fellow SoCal VoCals singer told him about the show. He dropped out in the hope of winning it.

Which boy-band singer hosted The Sing-Off during the 2011 season that Pentatonix won?

Nick Lachey of 98 Degrees stayed on as host for a season that had grown from ten groups to sixteen, split into two brackets so that only half sang each week.

Which singer-songwriter joined the judges of The Sing-Off for the season Pentatonix won, replacing Nicole Scherzinger?

Sara Bareilles judged only that one season, taking the chair when Scherzinger left for The X Factor. She sat beside Ben Folds and Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men.

Pentatonix closed the 2011 finale of The Sing-Off by singing which 1980s rock anthem as its victory song?

Eye of the Tiger, the Survivor hit, was the winners' song after Pentatonix beat a sixteen-voice college group and an eight-piece from Denver in the final.

Which Ivy League a cappella group finished second to Pentatonix on the 2011 season of The Sing-Off?

Dartmouth Aires put sixteen singers on stage against Pentatonix's five, and bowed out with Somewhere from West Side Story as their farewell number.

The trio who founded Pentatonix first covered which Lady Gaga hit to try to win a meeting with the Glee cast?

Telephone did not win the local radio contest, but the trio's version made their name around school and then drew attention on YouTube.

Pentatonix signed with which major label in 2014 after two years of EPs on the small Madison Gate imprint?

RCA Records took the group on after Epic, a sister label, had dropped it soon after The Sing-Off. The first RCA release gathered the early EPs into an album for Japan.

Which holiday song from the deluxe PTXmas took Pentatonix to number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100?

Little Drummer Boy was one of two tracks added for the 2013 reissue, and it also reached number one on Billboard's Holiday 100 chart.

Pentatonix's holiday favorite White Winter Hymnal was first released in 2008 by which indie folk band?

Fleet Foxes made it their first single, and a demo of the song talked the head of the label Bella Union out of closing his company. Pentatonix recorded it six years later.

Which Pentatonix original from the self-titled 2015 album was reissued in a second version featuring rapper Tink?

Can't Sleep Love led the first Pentatonix album built mostly on the group's own songs, which entered the Billboard 200 at number one. No a cappella act had topped that chart before.

Which pop singer joined Pentatonix on its 2015 cover of the Shai ballad If I Ever Fall in Love?

Jason Derulo shares the lead with Scott Hoying on the track, the only cover on the standard edition of an album otherwise made of originals.

Which American Idol alumnus made the mash-up video The Wizard of Ahhhs with Pentatonix in 2013?

Todrick Hall comes from the same Texas city as the group's founders, and the video dresses everyone as characters from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.

Pentatonix played carolers cursed into living glass figurines in which 2023 holiday comedy film?

Candy Cane Lane stars Eddie Murphy, and its carolers are earlier victims of a wicked elf played by Jillian Bell, who has trapped them as glass figurines.

Which Netflix romantic comedy sends its heroine racing across New York for a sold-out Pentatonix concert ticket?

Meet Me Next Christmas has the group following the heroine's quest from afar and finally sending her a ticket themselves. Pentatonix also recorded the film's title song.

At the 2014 Kennedy Center Honors, Pentatonix sang That Thing You Do in tribute to which honoree?

Tom Hanks wrote and directed the 1996 film the song comes from, about a band with a single hit. Barack and Michelle Obama were in the audience for the tribute.

Three Pentatonix members played college a cappella singers in a 2016 episode of which Fox crime drama?

Bones cast Kirstin Maldonado, Scott Hoying and Mitch Grassi in The Strike in the Chord, where they sing in two different campus choirs. The group's other two members sat it out.

Pentatonix appeared as themselves in a 2024 holiday episode of which long-running animated series?

The Simpsons gave the group a carol with parody words in O C'mon All Ye Faithful, a double-length special built around illusionist Derren Brown. Patti LaBelle also played herself.

New Pentatonix vocals were paired with which crooner's 1960 recording for a 2025 Adult Contemporary chart-topper?

Frank Sinatra had not topped that chart since 1967, and the 58-year wait between his number ones was the longest it had ever seen. He died in 1998.

Pentatonix reached The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2013 after a viral mash-up tracing the career of which singer?

Beyoncé supplied every song in the mash-up, and the booking came in the same week that ABC's Diane Sawyer named Pentatonix her Persons of the Week.

Pentatonix opened its 2018 holiday campaign with a song from a Tim Burton stop-motion film, written by which composer?

Danny Elfman wrote the songs for The Nightmare Before Christmas and sang Jack Skellington's parts himself. Pentatonix released its cover of Making Christmas a month before the album arrived.

Which pop star duets with Pentatonix on an original song from the 2022 album Holidays Around the World?

Meghan Trainor sings on Kid on Christmas, one of four originals on an album that otherwise remakes earlier Pentatonix recordings to celebrate holiday traditions from different cultures.

Which 2021 Pentatonix album was the group's first full-length set of original songs since 2015?

The Lucky Ones was recorded with the members isolated from one another during the pandemic. Its deluxe edition added Midnight in Tokyo, sung with the Japanese group Little Glee Monster.

Scott Hoying and Mitch Grassi of Pentatonix first met as children when both were cast in which musical?

Annie brought the two together in local theater, and after a spell at different schools they were reunited in a production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Mitch Grassi of Pentatonix names which British electronic musician as his dream mentor and biggest influence?

Imogen Heap also wrote Aha!, a song Pentatonix covered on its first EP in 2012, the year after the group formed.

Mitch Grassi of Pentatonix debuted a solo project of dark electronic music in 2020 under which stage name?

Messer first appeared as a DJ set at an online Club Quarantine event during the 2020 lockdown, and an EP called Roses followed a year later.

Which film director invited Pentatonix to record soundtracks for the 2014 holiday windows at Barneys in New York?

Baz Luhrmann gave each window a theme such as love, beauty, truth or freedom, with its own Pentatonix soundtrack. The group also sang at the opening night.

Which veteran producer chose Pentatonix's Kevin Olusola to represent him in concert at the 2012 Montreux Jazz Festival?

Quincy Jones put him on the same program as Bobby McFerrin and Chick Corea. Olusola has also opened a TED Conference in Vancouver.

Pentatonix released a 2016 medley of songs, including Chocolate Disco and Polyrhythm, by which Japanese girl group?

Perfume are a trio who formed in Hiroshima in 2000, and the medley arrived in the year Pentatonix opened a world tour in Japan.