Astrid Jorgensen, founder and director of Brisbane’s Pub Choir, has made her “America’s Got Talent” debut, with the help of the entire audience.
Instead of performing solo, the 34-year-old music teacher-turned-choir-conductor led the AGT crowd in a group performance of Toto’s “Africa.”
Before the performance, Jorgensen told the judges she conducts “the biggest choir in the world,” then introduced guitarist Sahara Beck to help guide the audience through the choral arrangement of the 1980s classic.
The singalong quickly won over most of the panel.
“That was smart,” said Simon Cowell.
“I loved it,” added Howie Mandel. “I think the world loves a singalong.”
Sofía Vergara called it “a really cute moment,” though she wasn’t sold on the format for the AGT stage, a comment met with boos from the crowd.
Mel B praised Jorgensen as a “really lovely girl,” but critiqued the approach. “This is your audition, not their audition,” she said.
Cowell doubled down on his support. “I think what you did was really smart,” he said. “Within about 20 seconds, every person in this audience was singing. To have the capacity to do that, and to let the audience win the show — that’s brilliant.”
Jorgensen received three yeses (Mel B said no) and moves on to the next round.
The performance clip, titled “Nobody Saw This Coming!”, has been uploaded to “America’s Got Talent’s” official YouTube channel, where it has already clocked more than 38,000 views at the time of writing. On Instagram, the same clip has received over 50,000 likes.
Pub Choir is currently on a world tour, having played sold-out shows in New Zealand, where Jorgensen led audiences in a rendition of “Sway” by Big Runga, and across Australia. The tour continues in the US, before heading to Singapore, Japan, and the UK.
Pub Choir started out in Brisbane in 2017 with a simple concept: get a bunch of strangers in a pub to learn to sing together in three-part harmonies to familiar songs. What began as a local experiment has since grown into an international phenomenon.