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What You Don’t Know About Pentatonix

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Five strangers met for the first time 24 hours before an audition that would launch three Grammy wins and a global fanbase.

Pentatonix didn’t start as a finished product. It started as a Texas high school trio covering a Lady Gaga song for a radio contest, then scrambled into a five-person supergroup with barely a day to rehearse before the cameras rolled. Nicki Swift’s “What You Don’t Know About Pentatonix” traces that improbable path — from Arlington bedrooms to a Sony deal, a label dropping them, and a YouTube comeback that turned into three Grammy Awards.

• Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi and Kirstin Maldonado first drew attention as a high school trio in Arlington, Texas, arranging a cover of Lady Gaga and Beyoncé’s “Telephone” for a local radio contest to meet the cast of ‘Glee’.
• The five members — including Yale grad and “celloboxer” Kevin Olusola and vocal bass Avi Kaplan — met face-to-face for the first time just 24 hours before their 2011 audition for ‘The Sing-Off’ Season 3, which they went on to win for $200,000 and a Sony recording deal.
• After Sony dropped them from Epic Records, the group rebuilt through YouTube, and their viral Daft Punk medley earned Pentatonix its first Grammy in 2015 for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella — the start of three total wins.

A High School Cover Song Started Everything

Before Pentatonix existed as a five-piece, it was just three teenagers in Arlington, Texas. Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi and Kirstin Maldonado arranged a mashup of Lady Gaga and Beyoncé’s “Telephone” for a local radio station contest, the prize being a meet-and-greet with the cast of ‘Glee’. That early arrangement is the direct ancestor of the tightly layered a cappella sound the group is now known for.

Building a Five-Piece in Under 24 Hours

The jump from teenage trio to Grammy-winning quintet happened fast and under real pressure. When the trio decided to audition for Season 3 of NBC’s ‘The Sing-Off’ in 2011, arranger and producer Ben Bram told Hoying he needed a vocal bass and a beatboxer to round out the group. Hoying tracked down bass Avi Kaplan through a mutual acquaintance, while Kevin Olusola — a Yale graduate and pre-med student at the time — got the call after a video of his “celloboxing,” beatboxing layered over cello playing, went viral online.

The catch: all five members met in person for the first time barely a day before their audition. The commitment required was serious — Grassi skipped his own high school graduation, and Hoying and Maldonado dropped out of college to compete. It paid off. Pentatonix won ‘The Sing-Off,’ collecting a $200,000 grand prize and a Sony recording contract on the strength of an ensemble that had existed as a full unit for about 24 hours before national television found them.

Five strangers had one day to become a group — and they won the whole competition.

Dropped by a Label, Rebuilt on YouTube

Success on ‘The Sing-Off’ didn’t guarantee a career. Sony ultimately dropped Pentatonix from Epic Records, and instead of folding, the group turned to YouTube — the same platform that had discovered Olusola’s celloboxing in the first place. They built an audience through elaborate medleys and cover videos, and the strategy worked spectacularly: their viral Daft Punk medley earned Pentatonix its first Grammy Award in 2015, for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella. Two more Grammy wins followed, alongside major commercial success with holiday material like ‘That’s Christmas to Me.’ The group even crossed into film, appearing as a Canadian rival a cappella squad in ‘Pitch Perfect 2’ — a wink to the same competitive a cappella world that made them famous.

Losing an Original Member

Pentatonix’s lineup wasn’t permanent. In May 2017, original vocal bass Avi Kaplan — the member Hoying had recruited through a mutual acquaintance back in 2011 — stepped away from the group, citing the grind of the touring schedule. Matt Sallee stepped in as the new permanent bass, and the group carried on as a five-piece built around Hoying, Grassi, Maldonado, Olusola and Sallee. It’s the kind of lineup shake-up that’s derailed plenty of vocal groups — as covered in The Biggest Boy Band Beefs Ever — but Pentatonix kept touring and recording without missing a beat.

What sticks with the story isn’t just the Grammy hardware, it’s the timeline: a radio contest cover song in Arlington, a beatboxing cellist scouted off a YouTube clip, and a five-piece that met for the first time a day before the audition that made them famous. For a group whose entire identity is built on tight, rehearsed vocal blend, Pentatonix’s actual origin was chaos with almost no rehearsal time at all — which, as the group’s later YouTube comeback shows, turned out to be their whole formula for success. Anyone curious how other acts hide their own messy backstories behind a polished stage persona should check out Musicians That Are Nothing Like They Seem.