It’s a bucket list show.
That’s what an excited audience member a couple of rows up hollered down to me on Tuesday evening at Canandaigua’s Constellation Brands-Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center, where vocal superstar Josh Groban would perform with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
On a picture-perfect evening, regional Groban fans came out for a well-attended—but not crowded—concert of Groban’s latest tour, Stage, Screen, Symphony, promoting his recent album, Cinematic. As the titles suggest, Groban sang works first originating from Broadway, and then, in the concert’s second half, switched to songs from film. Not all selections, however, were on the album, a welcome assortment of tunes.
Against a background of scalloped theatrical curtains and, of course, a full orchestra, Groban set the tone for a night of stage and movie magic, opening with “Pure Imagination,” originally from the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, which was adapted into a Broadway show in 2013. Recorded on his 2015 Stages album, the song’s orchestration was lush, and Groban’s vocals were warm and inviting.
He didn’t waste time featuring the RPO. In another selection from his Stages album, Groban sang “Old Devil Moon” from Finian’s Rainbow, a lesser-known show from the 1940’s that was revived on Broadway in 2010. Playing the trumpet solo—performed on the album by none other than Chris Botti—Rochester’s Herb Smith demonstrated brilliance and warmth in the song’s slowly stylized trumpet solo and received not only a callout from Groban but also a hometown cheer from the audience.
Earlier in Groban’s career, it might have been easy for classical music aficionados to dismiss his singing as schmaltzy and over-popularized; several major critics have noted the differences in his technique and those of the world’s best opera singers. (Groban doesn’t deny that he’s not the right choice for a Wagnerian opera.) But over the last decade, Groban has demonstrated that he’s more than just a handsome face with a soaring voice. He starred in two Broadway musicals to acclaim: as Pierre in Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 in 2016, and then more recently as the titular barber in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd in 2023.
Sweeney Todd is a particularly tricky role, vocally, due to Sondheim’s topsy-turvy rhythms and darker harmonies. Groban leaned into a more grisly baritone tone for the role, a departure from his usual lyrical resonance, and the effort, along with his earnest character portrayal that leaned into the barber as a spurned human, earned him a Tony nomination and a great deal of respect from those who may have initially been skeptical of the casting.
On Tuesday, he performed songs from his two musicals back-to-back, starting with Sondheim’s “The Barber and His Wife” and transitioning into “Dust and Ashes” from The Great Comet. It was a great treat to hear these more challenging works that demonstrate Groban’s evolving voice.
But I suspect, by and large, that those selections were not what the audience came to hear. That came soon after, in selections like “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now),” the Phil Collins pop ballad, which was given extra reinforcement with the Buffalo-based Vocális Chamber Choir providing the “oohs” to the texture.
Groban didn’t come to the concert alone, though. He took the short-summer tour as an opportunity to feature a recent winner of the Jimmy Awards, the high school theater equivalent of the Tony Awards, held each spring in New York City. Rochester’s Broadway Theater League typically sends a couple of singers to the Jimmy Awards through its “Stars of Tomorrow” program. Groban has previously hosted the broadcast portion of the awards show.
Jimmy Award winner Samia Posades, from Arizona and slated to attend the University of Southern California in the fall, appeared on stage in the first half of Tuesday’s concert. Groban gave her the stage for “On My Own” from Les Misérables. Posades’s skills were immediately noted; her clear, resonant voice and powerful belt were well matched to the musical selection. But she wavered a bit with tempo changes, speeding up considerably at the bridge of the tune and entering a hesitant ritardando at the song’s finish. Only 18, she’s got time to learn how to breathe and take liberties within the rhythmic motor of songs, something that Groban is particularly expert at.
Groban joined her for an unusually chosen duet, “All I Ask of You” from Phantom of the Opera. Again, she demonstrated a command of belting with clarity above normal range limits. But the song—sung by the opera singer Christine Daaé in the show’s plot—requires a more covered soprano hybrid voice than a typical Broadway belt. Still, she was warmly received by the audience under the amphitheater roof, who honored her talents with a standing ovation. Many Jimmy Award participants and winners go on to major Broadway careers, so I’ll look forward to hearing about the directions Posades’s career takes.
Another guest joined for the second half of the concert, violinist and singer-songwriter Lucia Micarelli, a longtime collaborator of Groban’s. Micarelli was also afforded a solo that featured lots of percussive bite and daring double stops, taking advantage of having a mic’d instrument. On one tune, “Falling Slowly,” she provided harmony to Groban’s melody with her voice, demonstrating vocals that are more pop-indie than Groban’s, a contrast that was fun to hear.
The second half of the concert was devoted to songs from cinema, so recognizable to the audience that I could see many mouthing the lyrics along. In these selections, Groban luxuriates in the melodies, stretching out the lines and the phrases to swelling highs. In speaking with Groban prior to the concert, he mentioned that his confidence has considerably increased over the years of his career, and that easy confidence, living within each song, was what struck me on Tuesday.
The RPO, too, accompanied the songs confidently and lushly. While the sound system may have been just a tad louder than what was comfortable for me (surely to reach the lawn seats), the full orchestra arrangements, conducted by Syracuse’s Sean O’Loughlin (whose parents were seated next to me), helped each song reach an emotional pinnacle. The orchestra’s expert musicianship came through in the layered complexity of “Send in the Clowns,” another Sondheim gem.
The concert was a bucket-list type concert for my Rochester-native and current Chili resident mother-in-law, who accompanied me. For the 50-minute, rush-hour ride out, she brought one of the several CDs she owns by Groban. My car doesn’t have a CD player, so I cued some up on Spotify. She excitedly shared with me the story of how Groban was a last-minute and disappointingly low-profile stand-in for Andrea Bocelli during a Grammy Award show rehearsal with Celine Dion. He was only 17 years old, but his rich vocals blew Dion and other bigwigs in the auditorium away. Soon after, he appeared on Rosie O’Donnell and Ally McBeal, and he recorded his debut album, which became a multi-platinum seller.
Her response when she saw Groban? “He still has a baby face.”
Although Groban didn’t sing his biggest hits—songs like “You Raise Me Up” and “To Where You Are”—the concert was still nostalgic for many in the audience who remember the powerful, soaring voice of a scrawny teenager embarking on a major career in the late 1990s.
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