New design sneek peek!

I haven’t exactly been living a rock lately, but I’ve been working really hard on a new design for GrobanWire.com. At the moment, the current setup makes it difficult to update (there’s such a special process to do it, even sometimes I forget what to do) and I think the design could do with a facelift, don’t you think? I’ve enlisted the help of a friend to help me do the backend work so that I can get things up even faster.

Expect to see things moving in the week! As always, thank you for reading and visiting this small corner of mine in the WWW!

Grammy Awards 2009

The Grammy Awards have been announced and to some disappointment, Josh did not pick up the gold for his nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for Noel.

The other contenders for the award were Natalie Cole for Still Unforgettable, Michael Feinsten for The Sinatra Project, Barry Manilow In for The Swing Of Christmas and Rufus Wainwright for Rufus Does Judy At Carnegie Hall.

While I’m attempting to gather my thoughts about this, let me put it to you: do you really think that Josh needs a Grammy Award? I wrote up a whole spiel about how I didn’t think he needed one because Josh will only continue to mature as a musician with time, but then I deleted it because it wasn’t cohesive enough. Hopefully I can find words to articulate my point. Meanwhile, I’d like to hear what you think.

Josh presenting the Presidential Pledge

-Josh shares his thoughts on his participation in the Obama inauguration concert. Did you know, Joe Biden has his music on his iPod?

-He also meets the President and his wife Michelle. It’s an opportunity I would only dream of.

-Josh is interviewed after the Huffington Post Inaugural Ball and also for their blog. (Psst, did you know that John Cusack blogs for them?)

-He also takes part in the Presidential Pledge and advocates Music Matters, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s fund for music education.

-In other music news, did you know that Yo-Yo Ma’s string quartet’s performance of Air and Simple Gifts at the inauguration was actually a taped version? Well, the string quartet played along to a taped version of an earlier performance as it was too cold for the instruments to hold their tune. Only those close by could hear the actual performance.

-Finally, if you didn’t get a chance to hear Obama’s inaugural speech, please, watch it or read it. Watching the inauguration from my television screen at 4 am in the morning, I could feel the electrifying and uplifting spirit in Washingtion DC. One could even draw similarities between Obama’s inauguration speech with that of Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia on New Year’s Eve, 1990. How exciting to be even observing such change. To have been a part of it, that would have been miraculous.

Josh sings at the Obama Inauguration Concert

Josh and Heather Headley sing My Country ‘Tis of Thee

In a truly symbolic moment, Josh Groban celebrated in song the rise of President-elect Barack Obama on the steps of Lincoln Memorial with Heather Headley and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC. Earlier, Queen Latifah told the story of Marian Anderson, a renowned African-American opera singer best remembered for her historical performance of My Country, ‘Tis of Thee on those very same steps in 1939.

Today, in an equally groundbreaking moment 70 years later, Josh and Heather Headley also sang My Country, ‘Tis of Thee, backed by the Gay Men’s Chorus (with red AIDS ribbons pinned to their chests) in an open call for the freedom and rights of gay people.

Click to read more…

It’s finally confirmed! Josh, along with other artists, will be performing at the 2009 Presidential Inaugural Ceremonies in Washington, DC for President-elect Barack Obama, who will be President. Here are the dates and times relating of Josh’s upcoming appearances in Washington, DC:

We Are One
Sunday, 18 January
2:30 pm (encore 7:00 pm), HBO
Live from the Lincoln Memorial, Josh and other artists will kick start events by performing at the opening ceremony.

Feeding America’s “Skip Lunch” Rally
Monday, 19 January
Josh will “Skip Lunch” as he teams up with non-profit group Feeding America to help lead a rally outside the Martin Luther King Library in Washington D.C. You can do a bit to help tackle hunger in America in donating money or food to food banks.

Heroes Red, White, and Blue Inaugural Ball
Tuesday, 20 January
Josh will also perform at the Heroes Red, White, and Blue Inaugural Ball at the Warner Theater which will benefit military families and veterans.