JOSH GROBAN – WPAP BY FARIEZ

WPAP INFO CREATOR : FARIEZ AHMED DATE CREATED : 2010-06-27 SOFTWARE : ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS4 PORTABLE CREATOR COMMENTARY : ……..

Joshua Winslow "Josh" Groban (born February 27, 1981) is an American singer-songwriter, pianist, percussionist, actor, comedian, and producer who has sold close to 20 million albums in the United States. He is known for his unique vocal quality and classically inspired pop style. Each of his four solo albums has been certified at least multi-platinum in the United States. Groban, who has mentioned having a photographic memory for music, uses his encyclopedic knowledge of sound to inform his work with diverse fusion elements

Groban was born in Los Angeles to a school teacher mother and a businessman father. His father is of Russian Jewish descent; his Norwegian American mother's grandparents were from the eastern Norwegian district of Toten. Groban was raised an Episcopalian.[citation needed] Chris, his younger brother by four years, shares a birthday with him. Groban debuted as a singer in seventh grade. He attended Bridges Academy, where he was permitted to take normal classes from 9 AM to 1 PM, and attend theater classes in the afternoon. Groban went on to attend the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts as a theatre major, and graduated in 1999. He also attended the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan, majoring in music theatre, and began taking vocal lessons. He was admitted to Carnegie Mellon University, intending to study drama, but he left after four months into his first semester. In late 1998, the 17-year-old Groban was introduced by his vocal coach to Grammy-winning producer/arranger David Foster. Groban worked for David Foster as a rehearsal singer on a series of high-profile events, including the 1999 Grammy Awards where — as a stand-in for Andrea Bocelli — he rehearsed Foster's "The Prayer" with Céline Dion, and the January 1999 inauguration of Gray Davis as Governor of California. Groban was offered a recording contract at Warner Bros. Records through Foster's 143 Records imprint. Foster said: "I love his natural ability in the pop and rock arena, but I love his sense of classics even more. He's a true musical force to be reckoned with." Under Foster's influence, Groban's first album focused more on classics such as "Gira Con Me" and "Alla Luce Del Sole." Groban performed "There For Me" with Sarah Brightman on her 2000–01 La Luna World Tour, and was featured on her "La Luna" concert DVD. He recorded "For Always" with Lara Fabian on the movie soundtrack to A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001). Groban performed in many benefit shows, including: "The Andre Agassi Grand Slam Event For Children," singing alongside Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Don Henley, and Robin Williams; "Muhammad Ali's Fight Night Foundation" which honored Michael J. Fox and others; "The Family Celebration" (2001), which was co-hosted by President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and David E. Kelley and his wife, Michelle Pfeiffer; and Michael Milken's CapCure event, which raises funds for cancer research. David E. Kelley, creator of the television series Ally McBeal, created a character, Malcolm Wyatt, for Groban in the season finale aired in May 2001. The character of Malcolm Wyatt was so popular, with 8,000 emails from fans, that Groban was asked to return the next season to reprise his role and perform "To Where You Are." The singer's self-titled debut album Josh Groban was released on November 20, 2001. Over the next year, it went from gold to double-platinum. On February 24, 2002, Groban performed "The Prayer" with Charlotte Church at the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and by November, he had his own PBS special, Josh Groban In Concert (2002). In December 2002, he performed "To Where You Are" and sang "The Prayer" in a duet with Sissel Kyrkjebø at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway. He joined The Corrs, Ronan Keating, Sting, Lionel Richie, and others for a Christmas performance at the Vatican in Rome, Italy. In 2003, Groban performed at the David Foster concert for World Children's Day, singing "The Prayer" with Celine Dion and the finale song, "Aren't They All Our Children?" with artists including Yolanda Adams, Nick Carter, Enrique Iglesias, and Celine Dion. Various music critics have described Groban's voice in different ways, with some referring to him as a tenor and others as a baritone. In performance, Groban's music goes as low as G 2 (as in the song "To Where You Are") and extends up to at least B♭4 i.e. the first B♭ above middle C (as heard in "You Raise Me Up"). This places his voice lower than the tenor range on the low end, and just short of Tenor C, and therefore is a baritone with a comfortable high tessitura. In a 2002 New York Times article, Groban described himself as a "tenor in training". LITERATURE BY WIKIPEDIA | 2010-06-28

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