Pentatonix, the viral sensation that has taken the a cappella world by storm, brought down the house this weekend on their first ever visit to Bermuda.

Lead singer Scott Hoying, beat boxer Kevin (KO) Olusola, bassist Avi Kaplan, tenor Mitch Grassi and the only female member Kirstie Maladonado, wowed local music lovers at their two packed performances at the Fairmont Southampton Princess, as part of the Bermuda Festival of the Performing Arts 2014.

The talented pop group received a standing ovation from the audience on Thursday night, after performing a host of original and cover tunes, including a 28 song medley from Beyonce, Lorde’s chart-topping hit ‘Royals’ and a seductive version of Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Get It On’.

Two satisfied attendees who spoke to this newspaper right after the concert were friends Irene Manuel and Jennifer Faria. “I loved it and thought it was awesome. I wanted more,” Ms Manuel said.

The Royal Gazette had the chance to chat with group member Mr Olusola, during the group’s whirlwind visit to Bermuda, to hear more about how he got started with music and his first impressions of the island.

Playing the cello since he was six years old and beatboxing since high school, Mr Olusola said he was actually on track to becoming a doctor and graduated pre-med from Yale University.

“I planned to practice medicine in China and music was never on the radar for me,” he said.

Then in his junior year of college, two things happened that made him consider changing course.

The first happened when he learned about a competition held by famous internationally renown cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

“People from all over the world submitted a video of themselves playing a piece called ‘Dona Nobis Pacem’,” Mr Olusola explained. “I entered the competition and only had 14 hours to create my submission, and had just finished my last organic chemistry final exam.

“I did the cello stuff and thought maybe I should try beatboxing along with it. I had never tried them together at that point.

“I won second place in that competition and Yo-Yo Ma called my music ‘unexpected’. I was like ‘wow’ because he was everything I wanted to be — he plays for people all around the world and really explores where the cello can go.”

Shortly after that another opportunity popped up for Mr Olusola to be the opening act for American rapper KRS-One.

After the show, the artist came back stage and encouraged him to keep up with cello-beatboxing and told him “it could change the way people looked at both hip hop and classical music”.

Mr Olusola’s big break came when a YouTube video of him was seen by the original members of Pentatonix — choir mates Ms Maladanado, Mr Grassi and Mr Hoying. The trio happened to be looking for two new member to “fill out their sound” so they could take part in NBC’s a cappella competition ‘The Sing-Off’, which they later went on to win.

Mr Olusola joined the group just a week after graduating from Yale University in 2011.

He said being part of the group was “one of the most exciting things [he has] ever done”.

It has afforded him the opportunity to travel across the globe, but Mr Olusola still had a favourable reaction to Bermuda.

“I freakin’ love Bermuda. Everyone is so nice and beautiful and it’s crazy to see how kind and loving everyone is,” he said.

“People came up to me in the line for autographs after the first show and were inviting us around. Someone said they had a shop and offered to let us come by, another said they were an intern at Dolphin Quest so if we wanted to do anything to let them know.

“It has just never happened to us in that high of a frequency as it did [that] night. The people here are just so nice.”

Aside from the rehearsals and shows, Pentatonix members spent time hosting music workshops with local students and were hoping to fit in a little sightseeing. Mr Olusola said he hoped to return to these shores one day if possible.