Michael Buckner/Getty Images for Celebrity Fight NightKelly Clarkson is Josh Groban's Angel of Music! And ours.
It's the ultimate collaboration and dream duet of many lovers of musicals and love songs: The 32-year-old pop star and Josh Groban have recorded "All I Ask of You" from Phantom of the Opera for his new musical covers album Stages and their cover will give you chills. The song was posted on Groban's SoundCloud page this week.
"So excited about this new album 4 you!" Clarkson tweeted at the 34-year-old baritone crooner (who has some "high notes up my sleeve"), in March. "What an amazing collection of songs!! Thanks for asking me :) get it #AllIAskOfYou."
"I'm so honored you said yes!!" he replied. "What a joy to finally work with you on a song that means so much to me. You sound SUPERB!"
In the original cast album for the Broadway show, star Sarah Brightman sang the ballad with Michael Crawford. Groban has sung the song with Brightman on stage in the past.
Listen to Groban and Clarkson's cover of "All I Ask of You" below.
Groban's Stages album is set for release on April 28 (...just in time for Mother's Day...ahem...). The new album also features covers of songs such as "Bring Him Home" from Les Misérables, "Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz and "Pure Imagination" from the musical film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (although "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is listed instead).
Groban is also accompanied by a 75-piece orchestra. The deluxe version of the record contains two bonus tracks, including another haunting ballad from Les Misérables.
Groban, a big Broadway fan who had made his debut on the New York stage when he performed a special benefit concert of the musical Chess in 2003, says in a promo video that he had wanted to records these songs since he was a teenager.
"To now come back to this incredible material so many years later and at a time that I feel is really right for me to record the material—I feel like my voice is in a mature place," Groban says in a promo video.
And then, there's this. Thank you, Josh.
"And also, I think my fans have been looking forward to an album like this for a long time," he adds. "It's great that I can finally kind of sink teeth into these songs that I've wanted to sing since I was in high school."