Pentatonix Opens Up About Posthumous Frank Sinatra Holiday Song Collab

Pentatonix has brought some holiday joy to fans early with their new holiday album, Christmas In The City, and spread even more seasonal cheer during their exclusive iHeartRadio LIVE show.

Christmas In The City brings the Grammy-winning a cappella group's signature vocal magic into a wintery New York-inspired holiday soundscape. Featuring 16 tracks, it blends fresh originals like "Bah Humbug" and the titular "Christmas in the City" with jazzy take-on classics and lush medleys that evoke the wonder of first seeing Manhattan’s holiday lights. Cozy, whimsical, and classily arranged, this album marks a festive expansion of PTX's seasonal legacy — perfect for fans looking to soundtrack their holiday with soaring harmonies and big-city cheer. Not to mention, the project includes a posthumous collaboration with the iconic Frank Sinatra on the song "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm."

During their intimate performance, Pentatonix performed songs including "12 Days of Christmas," "Santa Be Good to My Baby," "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm," "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," "Christmas in the City" and "Hallelujah." The group also talked about Christmas In The City and more during a special Q&A hosted by iHeartRadio's Ellen K.

Although Pentatonix loves all cities, Christmas In The City was inspired by New York City, describing the Big Apple as "magical." The group's Scott Hoying added, "I was walking through New York City and I saw an ornament that had a little taxi on it. It said Christmas in the City. I was like cute."

Christmas In The City is also the first time the a capella group has added instruments to their music. Hoying shared of the decision, "I love that old classic Christmas sound — the Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby with the orchestra. And there's still a lot of vocals and a lot of harmony, and it just has this cozy feeling and I feel like we had never really done that before, and it was our eighth Christmas album, so it was time to. And what I'm really proud about this album is, it's creative and it holds true to our sound and what we do, but it brings that kind of tin pan alley old school vibe into it. It was really inspiring."

As for how their posthumous Frank Sinatra collab "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm" came about, Scott shared, "It was so iconic. I mean we are obviously very inspired by him. He's one of the best performers in history and an executive producer and orchestrator that worked on our album, Dave Pierce, who is amazing. We wrote a lot of songs with him. He knows the Sinatra estate and we met someone with the estate, and the Sinatras had to give their blessing, and we are beyond honored. And they blessed us with his sweet voice and we got to release an unheard vocal, and it's wild if you listen to it. You can hear the papers ruffling and the bleed of the orchestra from the other room. It was really, really powerful and magical, amazing."

Pentatonix's Kirstin Maldonado added, "I also feel like he was so good about vocal directing us with that song too, and with that arrangement I feel like we went back in time and were those singers with him in that booth that we were inspired by, that we're taking that inspiration from. And I'm just so proud of that song, like how we all sound and the arrangement. It's so fun to sing and just to do it, just have our names next to Frank Sinatra is just like, that's iconic. It's such an honor."