A Great Big World

A Great Big World is an American two-member musical group from New York made up of singers and songwriters Ian Axel and Chad Vaccarino and signed to Epic Records. The group is best known for their singles "This Is the New Year," which was performed by the cast in an episode of "Glee" and reached the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 chart in May 2013, and their international hit "Say Something," particularly after recording it as a duet collaboration with Christina Aguilera.

A Great Big World was formed by current members Ian Axel and Chad Vaccarino while they were attending The Steinhardt Music Program at New York University. Both were music business students and Axel is said to have convinced Vaccarino to write a song together. Vaccarino agreed to work with Axel after hearing him sing. They both wrote and performed songs together prior to Axel embarking on a solo career, in which he released an independent album featuring songs that were all co-written by Vaccarino

The group went on a national tour and performed as the openers for Ingrid Michaelson, Matthew Morrison (Glee), and Five for Fighting. The group re-branded themselves in 2012, which is when they took the official name A Great Big World. They released a six-song EP after obtaining funding from the crowdsource funding website Kickstarter.

In 2013, the group signed with Epic Records and released a three-song EP under the Epic label in May 2013. They have also recently announced a tour that will begin at the same time as their EP release. Their single "Say Something" was released on September 3, 2013. The song was featured in the final of the US dance competition So You Think You Can Dance on September 10, 2013. The song was subsequently re-recorded featuring Christina Aguilera after she heard the song, and this version was released on November 4, 2013, and that version reached No. 1 on the iTunes charts. The following evening, A Great Big World and Aguilera gave the premiere live TV performance of the song on the NBC television series The Voice.

Their debut album, "Is There Anybody Out There?", was released on January 21, 2014. In November 2013, it was announced that A Great Big World would be performing at the annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. The same month, they performed for the first time at the American Music Awards with their second single, "Say Something," with Aguilera. This performance won them a Grammy for the best Pop Duo/Group Performance in 2015.

The group made an appearance on the song "Over You" on Ingrid Michaelson's 2014 album, Lights Out.

In November of 2015, the band released their second album, When the Morning Comes.