While the pandemic left a scar on the careers of many musicians and performers, it snuffed the life of one Il Divo member.

The classical crossover male quartet lost one of its original members, baritone Carlos Marín, to COVID-19 in 2021, and the remaining three singers were left bereft and unsure if the group could go on.

“We went through the mourning and grieving process on stage, which was difficult,” said Il Divo tenor David Miller. “We asked Steven LaBrie from the opera world to step in and be a musical shoulder to cry on, to complete the sound of Il Divo.”

The group, composed of three tenors and a baritone, needed another baritone: “It was either that or Il Divo was over,” said Miller, who was raised in Littleton.

Luckily, LaBrie was interested and his voice suited the music and blended well with the group.

“We thought this might be the universe winking at us and saying you guys aren’t done yet,” Miller said.

LaBrie joined the group, and members went to work on “XX: 20th Anniversary Album,” which was released his year. Il Divo will perform Saturday at Pikes Peak Center.

Miller describes the group’s genre, classical crossover, as “the nebula between what could be considered classical music or technique and what is considered pop music or pop technique. As an opera singer, I had to create pop technique. And Sebastian, as a pop singer, had to create opera technique. We switch in and out of these gears every song. We’re a hybrid.”

Simon Cowell, whose name you might recognize from “America’s Got Talent” and “The X Factor,” is the man who dreamed up Il Divo. He became known as the “nasty judge,” Miller says, when really it was just his English accent: “English bluntness comes off so pompous.”

But Cowell was tired of talking about what he didn’t like about music and decided to put together something that showed what he did like. What he liked was classical music by the Three Tenors and Andrea Bocelli, as well as the opera selections on the soundtrack to the HBO series “The Sopranos.”

“He thought it was such powerful music, but so unmarketable,” Miller said. “He thought what if we tried to make an opera boy band and get younger people in their prime with voices that can do that?”

Cowell held auditions around the world and found Miller, Marín, Sébastien Izambard and Urs Bühler.

“They put the four of us in a room, said here are the songs, see what can you do,” Miller said. “We worked, figuring out whose voice did what. It was a big experiment. The producer chopped it up, put it back, we refined that, put harmonies over it. We played it for Simon and he got goosebumps.”

The group’s first eponymously named album dropped in 2004 and since then the men have racked up 50 No. 1 hits and released 11 albums, including “For Once in My Life: A Celebration of Motown” in 2021, and “Amor & Pasión,” an all-Latino album in 2015.

Cowell parted ways with the group in 2015, but gave them the group name and the rights to do as they pleased.

The new album reflects other changes for the band, beyond the new member. They arranged it and also wrote an original song, something Izambard had wanted them to do for years.

“When Carlos passed it was like we have no more time left to kick the can down the road,” Miller said. “You never know when your time is up. Rarely does anyone get a second chance like this. So we have to throw it all in. Do it now. ‘XX’ is our springboard into the next 20 years, fingers crossed.”

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