This article has been amended from its initial form.

This past Friday night the Lyndon B. Johnson auditorium echoed with the sound of rock, 80s, Qawwali, Bollywood, and original acapella music and arrangements by the internationally acclaimed acapella group Penn Masala.

Though the auditorium itself was a bit of a hike from the main campus area, the walk was well worth it. The benefit concert started off with anthems to both nations. Kudos to Miss Heather, who sang the US anthem, and Apurva Batra, who gave a great rendition of the Indian anthem.

Dhoom, the talented percussion group which opened for Penn Masala, upped their game with new music, as well as a piece with just snare drums. They were still able to draw the crowd into their comedic performance and poked fun at themselves as well as the hype over Miley Cyrus’ Party in the USA.

After the crowd was revved by Dhoom’s energetic performance, a brief presentation was made by the beneficiary, Nourish International-Austin Chapter. As explained by the students, the Austin chapter is a new sustainable development model of international poverty eradication with an emphasis on business ventures for fundraising.  The presentation was highly informative, although one could tell there were some nerves on stage. Although new, the organization has successfully completed a project in El Jicaro, Guatemala, and is currently raising funds for a project in Sani Isla, Ecuador, working with indigenous tribes. In all, the benefit concert raised $2,500 for the Sani Isla Ecuador project, which is exactly half of the total project budget.

The capable and enthusiastic MCs then introduced Penn Masala to the stage. The acapella group started out with songs such as Viva La Vida by Coldplay mixed with the ever so sweet Jashn-e-Bahaara from Jodhaa Akbar. The mellifluous tones of the Hindi song cast a spell over the audience, whereas the rendition of Viva La Vida showed the power and talent of the singers. Penn Masala started with high energy and got the crowd to respond within a few minutes of their first three songs. Before long, girls in the audience were screaming “I love you!”, to which Penn Masala responded “We love you too!”.

Clearly, the group would enjoy the afterparty with BXO, ISA, Nourish, and most of the lovestruck audience.

Penn Masala’s professionalism was outstanding. At one point, one of the soloist’s microphones wasn’t working, but without missing a beat he got a fellow acapella singer’s mic and just kept on singing. The group was very cohesive and always together on rhythm, thanks to the amazing beat boxers. The transitioning between singers was very smooth every time, and the harmonizing between the English music and the Hindi music was exceptional.

Penn Masala’s ability to be professional and warm at the same time endeared them to the audience. There were two very special moments in the concert - the first one was the dedication of the songs Zara Se and With You to a student, Pallavi Garg; and the second a more sombre dedication in memory of a peer who recently passed away. Making the connection with the crowd is normally difficult but the acapella group managed to do it with savvy.

By the time the singers got to the end of the program, they had given an amazingly spot on rendition of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing. They then broke out the Punjabi special mixed with Kevin Lyttle’s Turn Me On which had a good majority of the audience was bobbing and singing along. Penn Masala did so well that they had to come back on stage for an encore which was excited, relatively unpracticed and still really good.

I had only one gripe: The Hindi songs were somewhat pitchy and stylistically off. One of the performers did not seem to have quite the grasp on the Hindi vocal style, but even that was only heard by trained ears.

The performance as a whole was better than their last performance at UT two years ago. But that is saying quite a bit since their last UT appearance was mind-blowing. The facility with which Penn Masala conquered both Western and Eastern music is something that truly reflects musical talent as well as a multicultural upbringing.

Hopefully, ISA will continue to bring such amazing talent to UT Austin.

For more pictures of the event, click here.

Photo Courtesy: Amirah Islam

Related Articles:

• Penn Masala 2009
• Delhi 6: Music Review
• Review: Jashan 2008
• Penn Masala At UT Austin