Josh Groban on that operatic bit at the Oscars, his new album and the value of arts education

Josh Groban reminded audiences of his musical — and comedic — skills when he performed at this year’s Oscars with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, as host Conan O’Brien acted out how ungracious he would be if he won an Oscar himself.

While the “I Won” performance was operatic, if you were wondering if it was a nod to actor Timothée Chalamet’s recent dismissive comments about the cultural relevance of ballet and opera, Groban says it was decided on before those remarks went viral.

“We were ready to do that regardless,” Groban told LAist, adding, “I think that having these moments that were like a tip of a hat, not so much like in the face of Chalamet, but more like in the direction of just supporting these arts and showing these arts on a popular culture stage, I think was great.”

Backstage at the Oscars, Groban said he talked to ballet dancer Misty Copeland, who performed later in the show and whom he counts as a friend.

“She's in her incredible costume that she had this historical, wonderful outfit that she wore for her Sinners piece,” Groban recalled. “And I'm in this, you know, medieval outfit, and I just gave her a hug. And I'm just like, ‘How lucky are we that this is our job?’ Like, this is the best that we get to do this. So wonderful that we got to kind of — her more than me — loosely rep those worlds.”

While Groban is no stranger to awards shows, either as a performer or nominee — he has multiple Grammy, Tony and Emmy nominations and almost one for an Oscar (“Believe,” the song he performed for The Polar Express, was nominated for best original song, but only songwriters are credited in the category) — he’s so far never won.

It’s something that he and his fellow 2018 Tonys co-host Sara Bareilles poked fun at with a musical number dedicated to “the people who lose!” And were he to win now, Groban joked,  “I would probably, at this point, 25 years in, react exactly the way Conan did.”

A new album and ‘a call to keep us where the light is’

The idea for Groban’s new album was inspired in part by another performance of his last year, for AFI’s tribute to director Francis Ford Coppola.

Coppola asked Groban to perform “Brucia la Terra,” the Sicilian ballad from The Godfather Part III, for the event, and it’s now one of the songs included on Cinematic, out May 8.

“To be looking out at many of my cinematic heroes and just to kind of be reminded of the incredible brilliance of that score, that put a spark in my head of like, ‘Oh, these songs are wonderful and I love singing them,’” he said.

The first song Groban has released from the album is “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” from The Lion King, featuring the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles.

That song, Groban said, “which on the face of it is a beautiful hit Disney song, in today's climate, we were really thinking about uplifting and how can we take some of these songs and really use them as a call to action, a call to keep us where the light is, a call to allyship.”

Groban says he felt such a strong connection to each of the songs on the album, from movies like Casablanca and Stand By Me, “that I knew I would sing my face off, I knew they'd be songs people would want to sing in the car, the surprise for me was the depth of the emotion that went into [them].”

“Moon River,” from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, was especially personal for Groban because it features his father, Jack Groban, playing a trumpet solo: “He played trumpet in college and gave it up for 45, 50 years, and I got him to dust it off,” Groban said.

And being able to have his dad play on a song of his “for the first time ever, was one of the most emotional days in the studio I've ever had.”

‘We need to be reminded of our humanity’

While Groban got his first “big break" at just 17 years old, singing with Celine Dion as a fill-in for Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli during the 1999 Grammy Awards rehearsals, what led up to it was his arts education at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA).

As a shy kid who had a hard time making friends in school, Groban says seeing what his music teachers saw in him, “was so life affirming for me.” And it led him to found the Find Your Light Foundation, that supports K-12 arts education programs in schools.

“ At a time when our humanity is being tested more than ever,” Groban said, “we need to be reminded of our humanity through these programs. And especially our young people, learning about the beauty inside themselves and the beauty inside others through the arts, I can't think of a more vital time than now.”