Pentatonix kicks off holiday season with sparkle and joy at PPG Paints Arena

We will be inundated with holiday music for the next month. For some, the prospect may elicit groans — for others, there’s no more wonderful time of the year.

Most of the music on the radio in the coming weeks will be older. In many ways, the nostalgic nature of Christmas songs has frozen them in time. There are a few notable exceptions to this rule, though. The most famous is the perennial December hit “All I Want For Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey. But another new tradition is the holiday music — and concert tour — of Grammy Award-winning a cappella group Pentatonix.

Now in their 13th year of spreading holiday cheer from the stage, the vocal group became famous after winning the third season of NBC’s “The Sing-Off.” As their name indicates, the group consists of five singers. The original group has remained together, with the exception of one member switching out in 2017, and declared multiple times at Sunday night’s PPG Paints Arena show that they are best friends and love each other very much.

They brought that love and energy to the music as well, performing 25 numbers in two hours on their “Hallelujah! It’s a Christmas Tour.” The setlist was a mix of religious Christmas tunes, modern classics, original music — and a few curveballs.

The group opened the show with “Carol of the Bells,” a perfect song to show off complex vocal harmonies that they used well to their advantage. They greeted the crowd warmly, moving swiftly into an upbeat version of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” with some lovely gospel interludes.

After encouraging the crowd to sing, dance and get into the holiday spirit, the five singers took to the onstage risers for a bouncy arrangement of “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” that was smooth as a mug of mulled cider under white-and-blue lights.

“This is a sold-out show tonight, this is one of the biggest Christmas shows we’ve ever played,” announced Scott Hoying, one of the singers.

Next up is a song that has come to be heavily associated with the holiday season, “My Favorite Things” from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The Sound of Music.” Kirstin Maldonado, the group’s lone female singer, really stood out.

“The 12 Days of Christmas” can seem like a bit of a chore to listen through, since it’s so long and repetitive, but that’s because most versions don’t have the benefit of Kevin Olusola’s beatboxing. He kept things fresh with constant little beat change-ups, and Pentatonix clearly has a lot of fun performing this song in particular.

Then it was time to play a game called “The Wheel Of Christmas.” They rolled out a literal game-show-style wheel with a whole array of holiday songs written on it, spun it and sang whatever song it landed on.

The first song was “Just For Now,” originally by Imogen Heap. It was unfamiliar to a lot of the audience but brought yet another unique vibe to the show.

The second song was a mystery! There was a giant question mark on the wheel, which denoted an improvised song that they would make up on the spot. They took a wintry word suggestion from the audience for inspiration, and of course, as this is Pittsburgh and they were performing at PPG Paints Arena, that word was “penguin.”

So Hoying made up a lovely little ditty about “Mr. Penguin,” who lived in Antarctica and moved to Pittsburgh to play hockey. It was, honestly, adorable.

They rounded out this segment of the set with a spirited “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “Making Christmas” from the film “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” a crowd favorite.

Kevin Olusola got his own moment under the spotlight — literally — to do a beatboxing demonstration before they closed out the first half of the show with the slow and beautiful “Mary Did You Know?” and Stevie Wonder’s “What Christmas Means To Me,” a high note before intermission.

Coming back, they kicked off with a world-music-style version of “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” that had the crowd on their feet and dancing. They changed from white and gray outfits into black clothes, festooned with little pops of silver sparkle here and there.

During the intermission, the trailer for a Netflix Christmas film called “Meet Me Next Christmas” played — and the five performers got to act in it, as well as perform a song that shares its title. That was the next tune of the set, the five of them sitting on the risers onstage to perform the new song.

A cappella groups share a lot of DNA with musical theater performers, a fact made very obvious by their veer away from the holidays and into celebrating “Wicked,” the film based on the 2003 Broadway musical that was released this past Friday. “Happy ‘Wicked’ week!” Maldonado declared. “We’ve of course been waiting 20 years for the movie to come out but we saw it, we all got to see it together this Friday and it’s amazing.”

They performed “What Is This Feeling?” from the musical, which is an odd choice and kind of took away from the cheerful aura of the show, but it was clearly a big passion for the whole group. Afterward, Hoying ventured into the crowd on the floor to film a TikTok of him performing a viral dance from the movie.

Then, Olusola broke out a cello and his fellow singer Matt Sallee saddled into a drum set. They did an exhilarating rendition of the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” from “The Nutcracker.”

The whole group made their way to the B-stage as the back of the arena’s floor to do a mini-set, including “Hallelujah,” a song written by Leonard Cohen and popularly covered by Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright. They followed that with a show highlight — Fleet Foxes’ “White Winter Hymnal,” performed in all its ethereal beauty with the vocalists using claps, lap slaps and snaps in an intricate rhythm to provide percussion sounds.

Before “Evergreen,” a very pregnant Maldonado stopped to talk about Christmas traditions with her future child, but also with her young daughter. “If you came here with your mom, hold their hand for this next song, give them a big hug,” she said.

“This song is dedicated to you all. Love you, moms,” she added.

After another of their original songs, they danced their way back to the main stage to an energetic version of “O Come All Ye Faithful” and put a bow on their regular setlist with another of their own tunes, “Kid on Christmas.”

Coming back for an encore, they put their mics away and sang a mash-up of “Pure Imagination” from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” and “Christmas Time Is Here” from “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” It was the most purely artistic and gorgeous moment of the show.

They ended the night with a rainbow-lit stage and a modern version “Joyful Joyful,” bringing lots of gospel, hip-hop — and even a little Janet Jackson — to a celebratory hymn.

Even the biggest Grinch would have to sing the praises of such a talented group. They brought the gift of a little something for everyone in this latest Christmas tour.