I’m sure it will come as no surprise that I spend a fair amount of time wandering around YouTube, looking for the Next Big Thing. During my wanderings yesterday, I came across the YouTube channel of Nick Pitera. He has a lovely singing voice, but the same could be said of many of the denizens of YouTube. Two things make him really special. First, his range is incroyable (I tried typing “incredible,” but the English lacked the oomph of the French). His soprano voice is every bit as magnificent as his baritone, and there’s no discernible break between his head and his chest voices. Magnifique! (See English v. French explanation above.)

The second thing that really made him stand out for me, and the reason I clicked on one of his videos to begin with, is that in his “One Man” series, he has cleverly turned that epic vocal range into a way of singing all the parts of a show, soundtrack, or other piece of music, himself.

A little digging around turned up the interesting information that Pitera works for Disney/Pixar as an animator. I presume that means his videos of Disney musicals are with Big Brother’s blessings. Otherwise, they’d sue him so hard, he’d walk funny. I’m not sure what the relationship is there, but it may explain the slickness of his videos. The polish in no way takes away from the videos’ overall amaze-ballness.

Trying to talk about his creativity and his sense of timing and his strong visuals is useless. You’d better just watch.