Pulling at the heart strings

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This article was published 30/07/2022 (1394 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While violinist Mitchell Grobb has toured the globe as a member of Cirque du Soleil, he has yet to perform in front of a Manitoba crowd as a member of the company.

That’s all about to change next week, since Cirque is scheduled to perform its insect-themed show “Ovo” at the Canada Life Centre in Winnipeg from Wednesday to Sunday.

The Carberry native said the upcoming production is a welcome change of pace, as it will give him the opportunity to reconnect with friends and family who still live in the province.

“I’m used to not knowing anyone in the audience, or not knowing anyone in the city that we’re performing in,” Grobb said. “So this is going to be super special, to be close to Brandon and Carberry and just being in Winnipeg, where there’s so many people from so many different parts of my life.”

Outside of being a fun homecoming, the 38-year-old musician said he believes the upcoming show will remind him of how far he has come in his music career, which has allowed him to visit more than 40 countries and rub elbows with major players in the entertainment industry.

Even after the COVID-19 pandemic briefly stalled that momentum, Grobb is particularly thankful for how everything has turned out so far, and he feels like there is plenty more to come.

The Suzuki method

Grobb’s love of music first bubbled to the surface in the late 1980s when he stumbled upon a performance by members of the Brandon Suzuki Talent Education Program at Brandon Shoppers Mall during the holidays.

While Grobb’s memory of the event is hazy, since he was only four years old at the time, his mother Sandra Grobb vividly recalls how the group caught her son’s attention, inspiring him to ask if he could learn to play an instrument as well.

“But we didn’t think anything would come of that,” she told the Sun, adding she initially thought her son’s request was a childhood phase he would quickly grow out of.

However, Sandra said her son was still dead set on becoming a musician by the time the new year rolled around, encouraging her and her husband Lyle Grobb to sign their son up for the Suzuki Talent Education Program in the spring.

The local initiative takes its name from famous Japanese violinist Shinichi Suzuki, who developed a method of teaching that applies the basic principles of language acquisition to the learning of music.

Part of the Suzuki method involves significant parental oversight, which meant Sandra was a vital part of shaping her son’s routine and work ethic in those early days.

“Like any kid, he didn’t really want to practise,” she said. “But in the Suzuki program the parent goes to the lesson, the parent takes notes and you become the home teacher during the week.”

“That’s one of the reasons why I love to work with Cirque, because it is such an open expression of the arts in so many different ways.”– Mitchell Grobb

Once Mitchell Grobb got into the habit of rehearsing every day, Sandra said, her son showed results almost immediately, later demonstrating a tremendous aptitude for tackling various musical styles through the violin.

This became increasingly apparent when Grobb performed in and around Westman alongside other Suzuki program students, which is where his true potential as an artist was laid bare.

“His ear is so good that he can pick-up things quite quickly … so he’s very easy to play with in a chamber music setting,” recalled instructor Robert Richardson Jr., who taught Grobb in the Suzuki program for around a decade.

“And he’s not afraid to ask questions or to learn from people. If he doesn’t know something, he won’t try and fake it. He’ll figure it out or he’ll ask people, or he’ll go and do some research. So I respect him a lot for that.”

Grobb sharpened his musical instincts with the Brandon Conservatory Youth Orchestra and The Fantasy Fiddlers group, eventually becoming a teacher and performance leader of the latter by the age of 13.

At 17, Grobb took a big step toward making music his full-time career by auditioning for the Calgary-based performance troupe known as Barrage, which had gained a reputation for blending eclectic violin music with high-energy physical choreography.

Although he hadn’t even graduated from high school by this point, Grobb’s talent shone through during the application process and he secured a spot in the international touring group.

“I don’t know if I was intimidated, but I was absolutely nervous,” he said.

“I had moved away for the first time and, all of a sudden, here I am on tour and doing these shows. It was a steep learning curve, but in so many good ways. To me, it was a crash course in touring.”

Violins and cockroaches

Following his four-year stint with Barrage, Grobb moved to Japan to work at Tokyo Disney Resort, showcasing his skills with the violin as a member of an Irish stage show.

While this job provided the up-and-coming musician with a greater sense of stability, especially after travelling non-stop with his previous employer, Grobb remained on the lookout for the next big thing, eventually finding it with Cirque du Soleil, which was building a theatre in the area.

“I had been a Cirque fan forever … and I’d be passing this theatre every day thinking ‘I’m going to send them a video,’” he recalled.

“So I found an email address, sent off some cold tapes, unsolicited auditions, and I didn’t hear anything for I don’t remember how long.”

Grobb finally got a response from Cirque after he moved back to Canada, receiving a phone call that eventually led to him becoming a member of the company’s winter-themed “Wintuk” show, which was staged at New York City’s Madison Square Garden in 2010.

The Westman violinist remembers feeling shocked that he managed to book such a high-profile gig at the tender age of 26.

While used to touring and putting on grand theatrical performances by this point, Grobb said Cirque took these elements to a whole different level through its high production values and use of world-class athletes.

“So it brings a whole different atmosphere and aspect to what I’m doing with the music on tour,” he said. “You’re kind of tossed into a new kind of working pattern and a different working life as far as the artistry of it goes.”

Over the next decade, Grobb participated in numerous Cirque productions, including “Corteo,” “Dralion,” and “Ovo” starting in 2014.

For “Ovo” specifically, Grobb and his bandmates provide a steady stream of Latin-inspired music, which serves as a sonic backdrop for acrobats and dancers dressed as insects as they perform death-defying stunts.

Rather than get pushed into the background, Grobb and his fellow musicians get right in the middle of the action as well, performing on stage inside giant cockroach costumes.

“For me, music is more of a personal thing than anything else … so just do what you like and don’t let people tell you otherwise.”– Mitchell Grobb

“When they first told me that I was going to be a violin-playing cockroach, that was definitely a surprise. I was not expecting that,” he said.

“I asked ‘why are the musicians cockroaches?’ and they told me that ‘when everybody sees cockroaches, they dance.’”

Even though these shows have a lot of moving parts and involve an army of people working behind the scenes, Grobb was pleased to find out there’s enough room for him to evolve his sound and flex his artistic creativity.

“They do give a lot of freedom for personal input, and you can add your own little flair to it,” he said.

“That’s one of the reasons why I love to work with Cirque, because it is such an open expression of the arts in so many different ways.”

Pushing pause

Grobb’s consistent work with Cirque came to a grinding halt in early 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down all in-person performances across the world.

Despite being an uncertain time for those working in the entertainment industry, Grobb made the best of a bad situation by returning to Carberry to live with his parents, who were more than happy to welcome him back home after all this time.

“None of us knew when he’d get back to work, but it was good,” Sandra said.

“We heard lots of music in our house, which we didn’t have once he left, and it was good to have him home.”

Throughout this period, Grobb stayed productive when it came to his music. He caught up on projects that he didn’t have time for previously, and even increased his familiarity with instruments like the guitar.

That development doesn’t come as a surprise to Richardson, who witnessed the same kind of drive and curiosity from Grobb when he was a student in the Suzuki Talent Education Program.

“I always found him hard-working, always ready to take something to another level, not being comfortable with what it is, but to challenge himself,” the instructor said.

Grobb credits his open-minded approach to music to the string of mentors he encountered growing up, including the likes of Richardson, Gordie Carnahan, Cameron Baggins and his own grandfather Dave Grobb, who all sparked his interest in various musical styles from jazz, to folk, to bluegrass, to old-time fiddle music.

“They wanted to put emphasis on classical music for technique as well … but all of my teachers always pushed me to keep my horizons open, and keep exploring, and keep trying to find new things,” Grobb said.

Back in the spotlight

While Grobb appreciated his time off, he was excited to head back to rehearsals at the start of this year, with “Ovo” resuming its full-time touring schedule in the spring.

He has already put his pandemic-era productivity to good use, getting the opportunity to play both the violin and the guitar on stage.

Admittedly, he knows the entertainment industry is still operating under a dark cloud of sorts, particularly for travelling performers like him who are at the mercy of constantly changing health restrictions.

“There’s a whole new set of challenges, obviously, with COVID testing and pandemic protocols. There’s different regulations in every jurisdiction,” he said. “So it’s definitely very different, but I couldn’t be happier. I absolutely love to do it.”

Now, Grobb is mostly focused on getting back in the groove with “Ovo,” although he is working on many other smaller projects in the background.

Richardson was stumped when asked if he had any advice to provide his former student, noting that Grobb is already on the right track in terms of harnessing his work ethic and raw talent in equal measure.

“If he’s just himself, he will continue to excel,” Richardson said.

Meanwhile, Sandra remains immensely proud of how much her son has accomplished since first picking up a violin at five years old, especially since a full-time career in the entertainment industry wasn’t explicitly the goal from the beginning.

“It’s really amazing, because we didn’t know where that would go,” she said. “We didn’t know that he would keep going and love it as much as he does.”

And even though Grobb has achieved a lot of professional success over the last 20 years, his overall message to young aspiring musicians is to simply pick-up an instrument for the fun of it, with the belief that everything else will eventually fall into place.

“For me, music is more of a personal thing than anything else,” he said. “So just do what you like and don’t let people tell you otherwise.”

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

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