Sarah Horn performs with Kristin Chenoweth at the Hollywood Bowl Friday, Aug. 23. (Mike Kestler/YouTube)
When Riverside vocal instructor Sarah Horn was pulled on stage to sing with Tony winner Kristin Chenoweth at the Hollywood Bowl Friday, Aug. 23, Mike Kestler had no idea what was about to happen.
“I just knew I had to capture whatever it was,” Kestler said, as he filmed his friend performing the duet “For Good” with Chenoweth on his iPhone.
By Monday morning, that video racked up more than 1.3 million views on YouTube and Horn was an even bigger hit than the standing ovation she received at the Bowl Friday night.
VIDEO: RIVERSIDE: Cal Baptist teacher sings with Kristin Chenoweth
Horn and Kestler met at California Baptist University when they sang in the same choir when he was a freshman and she was earning her master’s degree.
When Horn was hired to teach voice lessons last year, Kestler, who starts his junior year and is majoring in music composition and piano, was assigned to be her accompanist.
“When she was up there, my thought was, ‘It’s about time,’ because I’ve seen her dedication and I’ve seen just how hard she pushes herself,” Kestler said.
He pumped his fist in he air as she sang a line with Chenoweth about friendship.
“It was so amazing for me to watch that happening,” Kestler said.
After the show, they were backstage and had a chance to meet Chenoweth.
“I started to realize it was going to be big when immediately after the show people started mobbing Sarah,” Kestler said.
It took them an hour and a half to get out of the Hollywood Bowl.
VIDEO: See Sarah Horn’s performance
When he arrived home, Kestler’s went to post the video to his YouTube channel. It took all night to upload and didn’t appear on YouTube until 8 a.m. Saturday morning.
One of the first comments he saw on the video was someone wanting the video to get 1 million views by September.
“Honestly, I was a little skeptical. I thought maybe just our friends and some of the people at the Bowl would look it up,” he said.
At the end of Saturday, it had 50,000 views and by Sunday night, just before midnight, it hit 1 million.
The spread of the video on social site Reddit launched the video into the realm of viral videos and soon, shows like “Good Morning America” were calling, asking permission to run it.
“She’s very deserving of it and I’m so happy for her,” Kestler said.