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"This Sunday, the Force will be&amp;#xA0;with choral students and orchestra nerds around the world. The 2015 American Music Awards will pay homage to the imminent release of the newest Star Wars installment,&amp;#xA0;The Force Awakens, and the series&amp;apos; legendary score composer John Williams by enlisting the chart-topping group Pentatonix. The vocal quintet will lend its pristine harmonies to a medley of the Star Wars score backed by a full orchestra.&amp;#xA0;\r\n\r\nThe a cappella group, winner of Season 3&amp;#xA0;of the reality competition The Sing-Off, is known for its ebullient and inventive arrangements of songs by popular artists from Beyonc&amp;#xE9; to Michael Jackson. The outfit&amp;#xA0;has released three covers albums, one of which was last year&amp;apos;s holiday juggernaut That&amp;apos;s Christmas to Me, which outpaced Taylor Swift&amp;apos;s 1989 for the top&amp;#xA0;spot on iTunes. After such successes, Pentatonix made the strategic, albeit risky move into the realm of original music on their&amp;#xA0;October release, Pentatonix, which debuted&amp;#xA0;at Number One. The group&amp;apos;s latest single, the lilting, infatuated-with-love song &amp;quot;Can&amp;apos;t Sleep Love&amp;quot; is one of the rare times you&amp;apos;ll hear instrument-less music on Top 40 radio.   For Kevin Olusola, the group&amp;apos;s resident beatboxer and an Owensboro, Kentucky, native who grew up playing classical cello, Sunday&amp;apos;s performance is the opportunity of a lifetime. In between rehearsals for the AMAs, Olusola spoke to Rolling Stone&amp;#xA0;about the upcoming performance and binge-watching his favorite Star Wars movies on tour (his favorite is The Empire Strikes Back).  Let&amp;apos;s talk about Star Wars. What can we expect from Pentatonix&amp;apos;s performance on Sunday? We just came out of rehearsal and it&amp;apos;s going to be epic.   Did you guys write the arrangement for the medley? It was really a collaboration with the orchestra. We were ecstatic when they asked us if we would be willing to work with John Williams&amp;apos; orchestra. Our background is in choral music, so this felt like a chance to revisit and re-study certain classical techniques. It sounds so amazing. Our fans are going to be geeking out, because a lot of them are choral students, and I think they&amp;apos;re going to get a huge kick out of this.  Have you met John Williams yet?We haven&amp;apos;t yet, but I hope we get to during another rehearsal. I was classically trained on the cello, so it&amp;apos;s unbelievable to me that we&amp;apos;re singing with him.&amp;#xA0;\r\nHe&amp;apos;s such an iconic composer, from Jaws&amp;#xA0;and&amp;#xA0;Jurassic Park to Star Wars. When did you first become aware of him? It had to be when I first saw E.T., I learned about Williams. Later on, I was reading Quincy Jones&amp;apos; autobiography because he&amp;apos;s a mentor and someone I really admire. I didn&amp;apos;t realize how much Quincy had worked with Williams. Quincy was producing for Michael Jackson at the time E.T. came out, and he served as a producer for E.T. as well.   Are you a Star Wars fan?&amp;#xA0;Are you serious [laughs]? Absolutely.&amp;#xA0;\r\n&amp;quot;When we&amp;apos;re on tour, I&amp;apos;m planning on re-watching each Star Wars movie before we go onstage.&amp;quot;\r\nDoes that mean you&amp;apos;re a purist and against the Disney takeover of the franchise?Not at all, I&amp;apos;m definitely not against the Disney takeover. Star Wars is such a huge franchise, and Disney is the best suited to pour all the resources in it that the films require. Also, it&amp;apos;s J.J. Abrams, so you know it&amp;apos;ll be quality. And plus, looking at the previews, the movie actually looks like the original Star Wars movies. I mean, that probably took a lot of money and planning. When we&amp;apos;re on tour, I&amp;apos;m planning on re-watching each movie before we go onstage; then I&amp;apos;ll be ready to go for when the newest one comes out next month.\r\nStar Wars is obviously a massive part of pop culture and Pentatonix has had some wild success in the last year. What does it feel like to get a taste of the pop-culture machine?I&amp;apos;m really happy about our trajectory because we didn&amp;apos;t really start out in the pop light. We started on YouTube, growing our fan base organically. So I feel like the pop machine is really run by those core fans who are sharing our music because it&amp;apos;s different. Hopefully, it means we won&amp;apos;t just be a flash in the pan, and we&amp;apos;re doing something that has longevity. The fans and the publicity &amp;#x2014;&amp;#xA0;the pop machine &amp;#x2014; are so great, but it&amp;apos;s not really about that. We just love what we do.\r\nWe&amp;apos;ve all seen that music awards shows can play it safe. So what, to you, makes a great awards-show performance?&amp;#xA0;I think it really depends on the type of song and artist. But, for example, we recently saw at the Country Music Awards Little Big Town perform their song &amp;quot;Girl Crush.&amp;quot; It was a very simple production, but the harmonies were so beautiful, they made you weep. Then you had Justin Timberlake and Chris Stapleton,&amp;#xA0;two powerhouse vocalists,&amp;#xA0;performing together. The chords, the harmonies &amp;#x2014;&amp;#xA0;the emotion was so palpable in the room and not a single person was sitting down."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/pentatonix-on-amas-star-wars-tribute-its-going-to-be-epic-20151120>