Massapequa Park's Jesse Findling will perform on 'American Idol's' Hollywood Week show

Jesse Findling, the 20-year-old from Massapequa Park whose “American Idol” audition on the Jan. 26 episode won him a Golden Ticket to Hollywood Week, returns to perform on air Monday night on the 24th season of the ABC singing competition.

Following his televised audition at Belmont University’s McAfee Concert Hall in Nashville, Tennessee, last autumn, “I flew back [to Long Island] on a Sunday and then Hollywood Week was that next weekend,” said Findling, who had earned a standing ovation from judges Luke Bryan, Lionel Richie and Carrie Underwood for his rendition of Benson Boone’s “In the Stars.”

Fortunately, he said in a Zoom interview before his Hollywood Week show, he was able make a choice quickly. “ ‘Love in the Dark’ by Adele has always been a song I had on the back burner,” he said of the 2015 cut from her album “25.” “I was, like, this would be a great song with a live band behind me. It's a super grand song. It feels big and I wanted a song that felt like a transformation from my audition and that a band could enhance. And her as an artist, I love.”

As well, “Nobody ever expects a guy to sing an Adele song. I think when a guy sings an Adele song, it brings it to a different level [that] I think would surprise everybody watching.”

Hollywood Week will winnow the field from 127 to just 30. “Knowing that many people are going to go home is super stressful,” Findling said. “But after my audition, after the reaction, I’m going in with a lot of confidence” — although, he half-jokes, “If I don’t deliver, [the judges] are going to be, like, ‘Why did we send this guy through?’ ”

The 2023 Massapequa High School graduate, who appeared in musical theater there and has continued to at Binghamton University, where he is a junior majoring in biology, has taken this spring semester off from school. “My grades are good and school is always there and I will eventually go back,” he said, “but I just decided to ... try to make the singing thing work out.”

Unsurprisingly, he has been recognized around his hometown since his “American Idol” audition. But to have his parents, who along with his siblings appeared in that episode, “which is super funny,” he said. “But, yeah, it's awesome. Anytime somebody said hi, it's exciting and it shows that people are watching the show here and I have this big support system and everybody here wants me to do well.”