Pentatonix to Perform with Mobile Symphony Orchestra at Saenger Theatre Holiday Concerts

The Mobile Symphony Orchestra announced a landmark collaboration with vocal sensation Pentatonix for its annual holiday concerts, scheduled for Saturday, December 14, 2013, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, December 15, at 2:30 p.m. at the historic Saenger Theatre in downtown Mobile.

The pairing put one of the fastest-rising acts in popular music on stage with the Gulf Coast’s principal professional orchestra, and it was arranged at a moment when Pentatonix’s national profile was climbing by the week. For Mobile audiences, it meant a holiday program that blended symphonic arranging with contemporary a cappella in a single performance.

A Historic First for the Mobile Symphony

The performances marked a significant milestone for both the orchestra and the Grammy-winning a cappella group. Music Director Scott Speck expressed excitement about the partnership, noting that the Mobile Symphony had the distinction of being the first symphony orchestra to ever perform alongside Pentatonix.

“This is one of the most talented a cappella groups in years,” Speck said at the time. “As their reputation spreads and YouTube views grow by the tens of millions, we are proud that we can call ourselves the first symphony orchestra that Pentatonix ever performed with.”

Being first mattered for more than bragging rights. Orchestras across the country were searching for ways to reach younger listeners, and a collaboration with a group whose audience had been built almost entirely online gave the Mobile Symphony a rare chance to introduce its subscription season to concertgoers who had never bought an orchestral ticket before.

Speck’s orchestra, which performs its classical season at the Saenger, has a history of crossover programming, and the holiday concerts have traditionally been where the orchestra stretches furthest beyond the standard repertoire. Adding Pentatonix to that slot matched the group’s Christmas repertoire with the orchestra’s most family-oriented weekend of the year.

From Reality TV Winners to YouTube Superstars

Pentatonix, winners of season three of NBC’s competitive singing show The Sing-Off, had been rapidly ascending in the music world at the time of the Mobile concerts. The television victory had come only weeks before the group’s profile exploded online, turning five unknown vocalists into one of the most-watched acts on the internet.

The five-member group — lead vocalists Scott Hoying, Kirstie Maldonado and Mitch Grassi, vocal bass Avi Kaplan, and beatboxer Kevin “K.O.” Olusola — had recently scored a Top 10 debut on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart with their release PTX Volume 2. Named after the pentatonic scale, the group had become known for their intricate arrangements and reimaginings of popular songs, building a massive following on YouTube.

Their Daft Punk medley video alone had garnered 13 million views in its first week of release, a figure that dwarfed the reach of most traditional media appearances and demonstrated why symphony orchestras were eager to share a stage with them. The medley’s success also showed the group’s arranging range, layering a decade of electronic dance hits into a five-voice texture that translated the material for listeners who had never heard it live.

What separated Pentatonix from earlier a cappella acts, critics noted, was the percussion. Olusola’s cello-and-beatbox hybrid, paired with Kaplan’s low register, gave the group a rhythm section without instruments, allowing their arrangements to carry the drive of a full band. That fullness made the prospect of doubling the sound with a symphony orchestra a natural experiment rather than an awkward mash-up.

A Sell-Out Holiday Tradition

The Mobile Symphony’s holiday concert had long been one of the most popular events on the city’s cultural calendar. Diana Brewer, acting CEO of the Mobile Symphony, anticipated record-breaking attendance for the Pentatonix collaboration.

“Pentatonix is at the top of their game, and our orchestra is going to sound amazing behind them,” Brewer said. “We fully expect a sell-out crowd.”

The Saenger Theatre, the 1920s-era movie palace on Joachim Street where the orchestra performs, seats roughly 2,000, and holiday programming has historically pushed capacity. Brewers’ expectation of record attendance reflected both the annual demand for the Christmas program and the drawing power of a group whose fans were accustomed to watching them for free online.

Ticket structure kept the concerts within reach of families. Individual tickets ranged from $20 to $65, with limited VIP box seats available at $100 through the symphony’s box office on Dauphin Street or by phone. The range allowed casual listeners to attend for the price of a movie night while giving devoted fans a premium option close to the stage.

The Holiday Harmonies concerts were sponsored by Wind Creek Casino and Hotel, whose support of the orchestra’s pops and holiday series has been a fixture of recent seasons. Sponsorship of that scale is what allows the symphony to book nationally touring guests while keeping entry-level prices low, according to the organization.

What the Collaboration Meant for Mobile

For the Mobile Symphony, the concerts were a statement about where the orchestra wanted to sit in the national conversation. An orchestra of Mobile’s size rarely lands the first collaboration with an act at the peak of a viral climb, and the organization leaned on that distinction in promoting the weekend.

For the Saenger Theatre itself, the booking fit the venue’s renewed role as downtown Mobile’s premier stage. Restored and reopened in the 2000s, the theater hosts touring Broadway productions, comedians and concerts throughout the year, and the holiday weekend is among its busiest stretches.

The timing also intersected with a broader moment for the city’s downtown. Saenger Square and the surrounding blocks of Dauphin and Joachim streets had become the anchor of a restaurant and nightlife district that fills before and after performances, and a sell-out holiday crowd multiplies the effect for businesses within walking distance of the theater.

Locally, the announcement generated attention well beyond the usual classical audience, with the group’s YouTube following giving the symphony promotion a national reach it could never buy. Fans posted about traveling to Mobile for the shows, and the organization treated the weekend as an introduction for visitors who might return for future seasons.

As December 14 and 15 approached, the symphony’s offices reported the brisk sales Brewer had predicted. Whether the weekend ended as the sell-out she expected or fell just short, the collaboration secured Mobile’s place in Pentatonix’s history — the first orchestra the group ever joined on stage — and gave Gulf Coast audiences a holiday program that belonged as much to the streaming generation as to the concert hall.

The Orchestra Behind the Program

The Mobile Symphony Orchestra, the Gulf Coast’s resident professional orchestra, draws musicians from across the region for a season that runs from fall through spring at the Saenger Theatre. Its programming divides between classical masterworks and pops-style productions, with the December holiday concerts serving as the bridge between the two.

Music Director Scott Speck, who has led the orchestra while also conducting internationally, built the holiday program around the idea that the a cappella group’s arrangements could be expanded for full orchestra without losing their identity. The collaboration required rehearsal time that squeezed into the symphony’s regular season schedule, but Speck argued the payoff was a program no other city could claim that year.

The orchestra’s education and outreach wing also treated the weekend as a recruiting moment. Young musicians from area school programs were among the audiences the symphony hoped to reach with a concert that featured performers their age already followed on social media.

A Cappella Meets Symphony

Combining a vocal group with an orchestra is a delicate balance. The singers’ arrangements are written to fill every harmonic and rhythmic role themselves, so the orchestration has to support rather than swallow them. Conductors who have staged similar pairings describe the work as closer to accompanying a choir than backing a soloist.

Pentatonix’s Christmas repertoire made the pairing easier, since holiday standards already carry orchestral associations for most listeners. Songs the group had arranged for five voices could open out into strings, brass and woodwinds for the climaxes, then pull back to the bare vocal sound that made the group famous.

For the Mobile musicians, the weekend offered a rare chance to share a stage with a charting act. Orchestra players often describe pops collaborations as among the most enjoyable services of the season, and the Pentatonix dates gave the section a packed house for two performances in a venue where holiday crowds are reliably the loudest of the year.

By the time the Sunday matinee ended, the symphony had staked its claim as the orchestra that gave Pentatonix their symphonic debut. For the record books, that first belongs to Mobile — and for local audiences, the 2013 holiday season delivered a program that brought the internet’s most-watched vocal group to the Saenger stage with the city’s own orchestra behind them.