Josh Groban med musikalalbum 27 april

Josh Groban annonserte I dag sitt nye album Stages. Albumet, en samling av Grobans favorittlåter fra musikalverdenen, slippes via Reprise Records 27 april.

Groban selv beskriver låtene som “gorgeously arranged songs that have stood the test of time” – låter som han ble tiltrukket til deres kombinasjon av historie og fantastisk melodi.

“Nothing has inspired me more in my life than the energy that is shared in a theater when great songs and great art are on the stage. I wanted this album to pay tribute to those inspirations and memories.” sier Groban om Stages

Albumet ble spilt inn med produsentene Humberto Gatica og Bernie Herms i Los Angeles og London’s Abbey Road (med et 75-mennesker stort orkester), Stages

Stages inneholder låter fra kjente musikaler som Les Misérables (“Bring Him Home”); Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel (“You’ll Never Walk Alone”); Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George(“Finishing the Hat”), Sweeney Todd (“Not While I’m Around”), og Into the Woods (“Children Will Listen”); The Fantasticks (“Try to Remember”); A Chorus Line (“What I Did For Love”); Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Phantom of the Opera (“All I Ask of You”), The Wizard of Oz (“Over the Rainbow”), og flere.

Et annet høydepunkt er “Pure Imagination,” opprinnelig fremført av Gene Wilder i filmen Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, som også er en West End musikal ved navn Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. “It’s a tiny bit of a cheat because it was from a film originally, but I really wanted to sing it,” sier Groban. “The fans wanted me to as well. It’s one of my most requested songs to record ever. I am a huge fan of the original film, it was a part of my childhood. Gene Wilder will always be number one for me with this song. There’s a tenderness to the way he sang it that is just the essence of Wilder. It’s something in his soul that will never be duplicated.”

“Stages is an album I’ve wanted to make since I signed to Reprise/Warner Bros. Records during my freshman year as a Musical Theater student at Carnegie Mellon,” sier Groban. “I knew in my heart that, at some point, I would visit the songs I love from that world as an album. Having lived in New York City the last few years, seeing as much theater as I could see, and having so many great friends in the theater community, it became really inspiring to take this on. It was time.”

Groban sier tittelen til albumet er inspirert av hans kjærlighet til musikalene som er representert på albumet, I tillegg til “the countless stages, both physical and metaphorical, it has taken for me to get to a place where I have the opportunity to record an album like this in the way we did it, with the great orchestra at Abbey Road. It was an extraordinary ‘pinch me’ opportunity. There was a great freedom to go big with these songs because the world of musical theater welcomes that. It’s all about big stories, big emotions, and big vocals. Every arrangement on this album is its own work of art. Standing in the room and listening to the orchestra was just breathtaking. And Both Humberto and Bernie are producers who think about the warmth and clarity and emotion of the voice. What I love about them is the vocal, the arrangement, the quality is key.”

Det finnes tre duetter på Stages: Kelly Clarkson synger på “All I Ask of You” Audra McDonald synger på on “If I Loved You” samt trompetisent Chris Botti spiller på “Old Devil Moon”

Se albumtraileren til Stages here.

Track-listing for Stages:

“Pure Imagination” (fra Charlie and The Chocolate Factory)

“What I Did For Love” (fra A Chorus Line)

“Bring Him Home” (fra Les Misérables)

“Le Temps Des Cathédrales” (from Notre Dame de Paris)

“All I Ask Of You” (fra The Phantom of the Opera) (feat. Kelly Clarkson)

“Try To Remember” (fra The Fantasticks)

“Over the Rainbow” (fra The Wizard of Oz)

“Children Will Listen”/”Not While I'm Around“ (fra Sweeney Todd/Into the Woods)

“You'll Never Walk Alone” (from Carousel)

“Old Devil Moon” (fra Finian's Rainbow) (feat. Chris Botti)

“Finishing the Hat” (fra Sunday in the Park with George)

“If I Loved You” (fra Carousel) (feat. Audra McDonald)

“Anthem” (fra Chess)