Rick Massimo, The Providence Journal:

Cecile Clement Grobe
Christmasland
(Big Noise)

The Massachusetts classical pianist has come out with a winning collection of Christmas favorites with a few similarly memorable originals, all done in a plain, straight solo setting.

'Joy to the World' is lush and wintry-bright; 'Angels We Have Heard On HighÇ' is ornate, speedy and precise; 'Santa Claus Is Coming to TownÇ' is full of speedy flourishes, and the originals, especially 'Christmas EveÇ' and 'EvergreenÇ' are right in the pocket, accessible without being predictable, with enough off-kilter harmonies not to have to hide behind the Christmas-music excuse.

A winner.

Jim Macnie, The Providence Phoenix:

A performing pianist who has internalized the classical canon and worked in such vaunted venues as Carnegie Recital Hall, Cecile Clement Grobe was fulfilling her dream of being a sublime interpreter until she began writing her own music 15 years ago.

With their breadth, grace, and lilt, the original pieces were received even more positively than the classical masterworks that were her stock in trade; subsequently audiences now applaud C.C. Grobe the composer.

She will play tunes that come off like jukebox fantasias and impressions of holiday songs from her new CD, 'Chrtistmasland' tonight at 7 pm.

Make time for the joy of Christmas
by Rita Lussier
Providence Journal

I'm trying to find a place I haven't been to in a long while. That's why I've come here to the Warwick Public Library.

As it turns out, I'm not alone. In fact, all of the chairs set up in this function room are taken, so my late arrival finds me standing in the back by the refreshment table. Not a bad place to be.

I take a cookie and a seat on the floor where I have a bird's-eye view of the decorations on the table. Looking through the holly berries, I can see Santa. He's the engineer on a wooden train heading out over the white tablecloth. It says JOY on his train. I'm hoping for a ride.

When Cecile Clement Grobe invited me here for her Christmas concert, I did the usual thing I do when I just can't do anymore. No way, I thought. I would have to move everything around on my schedule. Who has time just to sit and listen to Christmas music?

WHO HAS TIME JUST TO SIT AND LISTEN TO CHRISTMAS MUSIC?

Can you believe it? That's what I asked myself. And that's how my schedule got shuffled along with my priorities and I made it here, albeit at the last minute. But here I am.

And there's Mrs. Grobe taking her seat at the piano in front of the room, ready to perform the selections from her new CD, 'Christmasland.'

I've had the pleasure of hearing this 2008 Grammy-recognized pianist and composer from Fall River perform before. What I especially enjoy, besides her music, is the disarming way she introduces each piece and shares insights of how her experiences were transposed onto the keyboard.

Somewhere in between her rhythmic rendition of 'Santa Claus Is Coming to Town' and her romantic composition, 'Yule Fire,' a gear shifts in my brain and I find myself transported on a lovely ride from hectic Christmas Present to carefree Christmas Past.

From packing and mailing to peeking at presents. From cooking and baking to nibbling the head off a gingerbread boy. From wrapping and decorating to caroling by the tree. From shoveling and driving to snow glistening in the lane.

It's as if, right here sitting on the floor of the Warwick Public Library, I've finally remembered why we are doing all this in the first place.

'My work comes from my experiences and I always learn something about myself,' says Mrs. Grobe. 'But from the overwhelming response of audiences, I realize that this personal experience is not personal at all. It is part of all of us, not mine, but ours.'

What I learned about myself thanks to a ride through 'Christmasland' is this: When I feel pressured to trim the tree I tend to blind myself to all the things that I love about the season. In my effort to tackle an extra long list, I let slip away the very things that would actually put me in the spirit to do everything else.

Maybe it's caroling with a choir. Meeting a friend for lunch. Stopping for hot cocoa with the kids. Going for a ride to see the lights. Sipping eggnog by the fire. Or yes, just sitting and listening to Christmas music.

Who has time just to sit and listen to Christmas music?

You do. I do.

Take the time. Take the break. Take the joy.

We deserve it.

Hot News:
The National Academy of
Recording Arts & Sciences
placed Cecile Clement Grobe on the
Official Ballot for the 2008 Grammy Awards:

Category 1 - Record of the Year
Cecile Clement Grobe - 'Yule Fire'

Category 9 - Best Pop Instrumental Performance
Cecile Clement Grobe - 'Holiday Romance'

Category 103 - Best Instrumental Soloist Performance
Cecile Clement Grobe - 'Winter Interlude'

Category 107 - Best Classical Contemporary Composition
Cecile Clement Grobe - 'Yule Fire'

Category 108 - Best Classical Crossover Album
Cecile Clement Grobe - 'Christmasland'

News Archive
The National Academy of
Recording Arts & Sciences
placed Cecile Clement Grobe on the
Official Ballot for the 2006 Grammy Awards:

Category 1 - Record of the Year
Cecile Clement Grobe - 'Rhapsody'

Category 2 - Album of the Year
Cecile Clement Grobe - 'Transformation'

Category 96 - Best Classical Album
Cecile Clement Grobe - 'Transformation'

Category 101 - Best Instrumental Soloist Performance
Cecile Clement Grobe - 'Jeanine's Song'

Category 105 - Best Classical Contemporary Composition
Cecile Clement Grobe - 'Tears & Rain'

News Archive:
The National Academy of
Recording Arts & Sciences
placed Cecile Clement Grobe on the
Official Ballot for the 2005 Grammy Awards:

Category 3 - Song Of the Year
Cecile Clement Grobe - 'Trees'

Category 95 - Best Classical Album
Cecile Clement Grobe - 'In This Moment'

Category 100 - Best Instrumentalist Soloist Performance
Cecile Clement Grobe - 'Trees'

Category 104 - Best Classical Contemporary Composition
Cecile Clement Grobe - 'Trees'

For the moment:
This musician writes music of her heart
by Rita Lussier
Providence Journal

I've never tried to write with music playing in the background. Some people do it all the time, I know. But for some reason, in order to tell you this particular story, I need to hear this. It's a piece called "Impasse."

It's by Cecile Clement Grobe of Fall River -- Mrs. Grobe, to me. It opens slowly at first, much like the story of how it all began for her. The piano lessons at age 8. The influence of her mother, a singer who performed in New York with Fred Allen. The years at the Juilliard School of Music studying with Carl Friedberg, the last surviving student of Johannes Brahms.

As the composition begins to build, layer added to layer, I think of the changes life had in store for Mrs. Grobe. The love. The marriage. The move to New Jersey. The daughter. And yet, what remained constant was her passion for the piano as she performed at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall and Juilliard's Recital Hall, earning critical acclaim for her "unerring sensitivity and romanticism" along the way.

Life as a concert pianist and a teacher was good. And maybe it would have stayed that way, she told me, if not for two things: "black ice and death."

About a decade ago, Mrs. Grobe slipped on a sheet of ice and shattered the bones in her arm -- and her ability to play for a while. At about the same time, three close relatives died. It was an emotional time with a huge outpouring of feelings. And without her usual way of expressing them on the keyboard, they had no place to go. But before long, they did.

Mrs. Grobe created "Pathos" out of her grief when her mother died. Out of her pain watching the the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, she wrote "Tears and Rain." Out of her despair at hearing news of war, she composed "A March For Peace."

One of her students -- my friend, Joyce Kilmartin, who first introduced me to Mrs. Grobe -- encouraged her to share what she had written with others. With Joyce's support and marketing expertise, Mrs. Grobe soon found herself on a new path.

By their very nature, however, new paths can be uneven. "When I used to perform Bach and people didn't like it, I'd say, 'Oh well, they don't like Bach.' But when I started performing my own music, it was different."

And suddenly, as she began to talk about her own music, she was somehow different. The sparkle in her eyes. The intensity on her face. The hands waving in the air as she described what she heard. What she felt. "You just reach a place inside where you are doing what you need to."

"When you get older, you look at things differently. You look at the world differently. You see that we are all the same but there's this wall built up in between us. 'Impasse' is about this wall. We need to tear it down."

How she translates these thoughts, these feelings, into the crescendos and the diminuendos, the dissonance and the harmony that I'm listening to is hard to describe.

Al Gomes, her manager from Big Noise, an A&R recording artist development company in Providence, submitted several of Mrs. Grobe's compositions to the Grammy Awards this year.

According to Gomes, of the thousands of pieces that were received by the Recording Academy, approximately 1,000 were considered for Grammy nominations. Four of hers were on the list sent to members who make Grammy nominations.

So what I'm hearing is that a woman from Fall River followed her passion to Juilliard and on to Carnegie Hall and eventually back home, where she fell on ice and grieved for those she loved but then rose up and transformed what she was feeling into compositions that made it all the way onto the ballot of the 2005 Grammy Awards. Tearing down walls? I'd say so.

Kent County Daily Times

World-class pianist comes to Coventry:
Pianist and composer Cecile Clement Grobe will be back
by popular demand to perform
by Jessica Carr

"We welcomed Cecile in to Coventry last year and we are hoping more people will come this year and enjoy her wonderful performance," said Jane Schweinsburg, an employee at the Coventry Public Library that helps to organize the performances. "She is just a magnificent performer and I wouldn't be surprised if she got a Grammy for her work."

As a former student at the Julliard School of Music under the instruction of Lonny Epstein, a Mozart specialist, and Carl Friedberg, the last surviving student of Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms, Grobe was able to develop into a renowned musician. As a professional concert pianist, Grobe has performed at such prestigious recital halls as Carnegie and Julliard. She has been hailed by critics as a pianist of "unerring sensitivity" with "Disciplined romanticism," the key note of her style.

"Cecile puts together music of a classical new wave sound that feels almost like Brazilian jazz and it's all her own music, only her music," said Schweinsburg.

"One of the things I like best about her performance is that not only does her music sound so wonderful, but she tells you about how she came up with it like how she went walking in the woods and came back feeling so good so she captured that feeling in her music."

Grobe has been composing her own music since the early 1990s, but according to information provided from the library about her, it was something she did merely as a hobby rather than as a professional gesture. Once Grobe became aware of immensely positive response from her audiences at the end of each public appearance, she explained how "my work comes from my experiences and I always learn something about myself, but from the overwhelming response of audiences. I realize this personal experience is not personal at all, it is part of us all, not mine, but ours."