Blogocentric Formulations

Celloboxing with 20% of Pentatonix

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Song: "Julie-O"
Artist: Kevin Olusola
Album: n/a

I can't believe we're three days into the challenge and I'm just now getting my first entry posted!

Some of you may have already heard this when I posted it in my newsfeed about a month ago ("Note: Paging [Link To User storymistress] , who loves ..."), but I had to lead off the Soundtrackers' challenge with this selection because it's not every day you come across an entirely new type of music. And yet, that's just what Kevin Olusola has managed to do by combining his beatboxing skills and his expertise with the cello. It's hard enough for most people to do one or the other well and he manages to perform both simultaneously!

Kevin Olusola is best known for being one of the five members of Pentatonix (and the Christmas challenge proved just how much everybody on this site loves them ). Just in case there was any chance you were thinking K.O. is anything other than a prodigy, consider the fact that he was playing piano by age four, cello by age six, and saxophone at age ten. By the time he was twelve, he was touring Europe as the principal saxophonist of the United States Collegiate Wind Band. He was the principal cellist for the Kentucky State Youth Orchestra and had the distinction of performing a solo at Carnegie Hall not once, but twice. He ultimately chose to attend college at Yale, but also turned down offers from Princeton, Stanford, Brown, and the University of Pennsylvania. He finished all of his pre-med requirements at Yale, but eventually switched to East Asian Studies and focused on his music. He's fluent in Mandarin, which he largely accomplished after studying abroad in China for less than a year.

This is actually the celloboxing song that brought him to the attention of Scott Hoying of Pentatonix, who contacted him prior to their appearance on The Sing-Off. K.O. actually only met the other members of the group the day before their audition. The group went on to win the competition and their career was born.

The composition, "Julie-O" was originally composed by Mark Summer, cellist for the Turtle Island Quartet. Although his own group has recorded over fifteen albums and Summer himself has performed with a number of crossover artists, his popularity is exceeded by his composition's; "Julie-O" quickly became (and still is) a favorite performance piece for cellists due to it's variety and complexity. Of course, K.O. decided to make it even more complicated by simultaneously beatboxing to it.

I included this song on my list because, honestly, I'd just never heard a piece of music like this. I love the cello, and I'm familiar with classical crossover and contemporary classical pieces, but I'd never heard someone manage to successfully marry such diverse musical skills as beatboxing and playing the cello. K.O. continues to develop the concept of "celloboxing" by releasing new videos on his YouTube channel, but it doesn't get much better than this one, if you ask me.