It’s almost dreamy to imagine a stage filled with 15 well-suited boys making music out of thin air…and some strong vocal training. Mumbaikars can witness the dream unfold, as the University of Pennsylvania’s a cappella group Penn Masala takes centre stage to perform a mash-up of Bollywood and Hollywood favourites, along with a few originals. Here are a few things you ought to know about the group:
1. The mid-1990s saw a sudden rise in the popularity of Hindi film music in the United States owing to a surge of Bollywood releases in the West. Founded in 1996, the group was the brainchild of four students at the University of Pennsylvania, who shared a passion for both Hindi and Western music. Experimenting with a combination of merging the two sounds, the group soon gained popularity amongst South-Asian peers and performed at college campuses across the USA. Soon, other university groups also followed in their footsteps—Stanford University’s Raagapella and Princeton’s Tarana.
2. As their popularity increased, the group even made an appearance on celluloid, in films such as American Desi (2001) and Pitch Perfect 2 (2015). The band worked on the Hindi cover of ‘Anyway You Want It,’ by Journey, and filmed for the movie in Louisiana for a week in 2014. During their acting stint, they rubbed shoulders with two of the biggest a cappella groups, Pentatonix and Filharmonic that helped with developing their own sound.
3. The band has released nine albums so far, their latest being Resonance, that features mashups like ‘Imagine’ and ‘Humko Man Ki Shakti Dena’. The mashups were composed to commemorate the hope and resilience of victims of shootings, floods, and terrorist attacks across the world. Other hits include ‘Fix You’ and ‘Ishq Bina’, ‘Diliwaali Girlfriend’ and ‘Tonight I’m Lovin’ You’, and ‘Viva La Vida’ and ‘Jashn-E-Bahara’.
4. The members of the group are constantly rotating as graduates make way for their juniors in an elaborate auditioning and training process. Since its inception, Penn Masala has maintained an ‘all-male’ status to preserve the tonality of the sound they’ve created over the years. However, they recently collaborated with Jonita Gandhi for the track ‘Manwa Laage’, on Resonance and are hoping to collaborate with more female artistes in the future.
5. In March 2014, a five-minute video by the group called, ‘The Evolution of Bollywood Music,’ went viral on YouTube. With a viewership of 1.5 million, the group experimented with the transformation of Bollywood songs over a century, and included songs from films like Dulari (1949) and Dil Apna Aur Preet Parayi (1960) to Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai (2000) and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (2013). According to Penn Masala member, Hariharan Ravi, the inspiration came from Pentatonix’s music video, ‘Evolution of Music,’ which recreated a mash-up of the best of western music across decades, through a cappella.
6. Every autumn, auditions are held for new members. The first round of the auditioning process is open to any male Penn student, who doesn’t require any prior singing experience. Students are asked to prepare a verse and chorus of an English and/or Hindi song, and if they qualify, they are screened through another intensive round of auditions where factors like vocal range, versatility of styles, pitch accuracy, and overall fit in the group is judged upon. Based on the requirements, three or four members are selected each year. Although the majority of Penn Masala's members are of Indian descent, non-Indian members such as Brian Hong, Sam Levenson, and Brendan McManus have been or are currently part of the group.
7. The group has performed across India, USA, and Canada on several occasions. In 2009, they were invited to perform for US President Barack Obama at the White House, during Diwali celebrations, and later performed for General Secretary of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon.
8. Each year, there’s a concert where alumni is invited to come back and perform. Since the band is celebrating their 20th year anniversary this year, 40 members gathered together for a weekend filled with reminiscing and singing old classics. The alumni evenings always end with a performance of ‘Mere sapno ki raani.’
Penn Masala is performing tonight at 7 pm Shanmukhananda Hall Sion; for more on the band see: pennmasala.com
