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Pop star Manilow to tour with Youngstown Symphony
YOUNGSTOWN
The Youngstown Symphony Orchestra is joining pop music legend Barry Manilow on a four-city tour, including an Aug. 27 concert at the Covelli Centre.
“We are excited to be a part of this,” said Patricia C. Syak, executive director of the Youngstown Symphony Society, which oversees the orchestra. “It’s great for the orchestra, and it’s great for Youngstown to have the orches-tra do this. I’m looking forward to the orchestra playing with him.”
It’s the first time the Youngstown Symphony will tour with a major musician, Syak said.
“We come with a certain reputation, and [Manilow’s management team] was impressed with the orchestra,” she said.
Orchestra members will be Manilow’s “full contingent of strings” during the four shows with some others playing brass, wind and percussion instruments on the tour, Syak said.
Randall Fleisher, the orchestra’s music director and conductor, won’t be on the tour. But he is “thrilled” that the orchestra is playing with Manilow, Syak said. Fleisher finished conducting an orchestra in the Czech Republic and is on his way to Malaysia to do the same.
The contract with Manilow and the symphony isn’t finalized, but a signed deal “is imminent,” Syak said.
The minor holdup is work visas for the 25 symphony members to perform in Canada, the location of two of the four Manilow concerts in August, Syak said.
“We’ve been led to believe there are no problems, and we’ll probably hear by [today] that we can take the orchestra out of the country,” she said.
There doesn’t seem to be an issue with Manilow’s management group as the Youngstown orchestra is being advertised as performing with the pop singer at the four shows.
Manilow and the symphony are to perform Aug. 24 at the Rexall Centre in Toronto; Aug. 25 at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; Aug. 27 at Youngstown’s Covelli Centre; and Aug. 28 at the Colosseum at Caesars Windsor in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
Syak confirmed the dates. The last two shows are listed on Manilow’s Facebook page, Ticketmaster is selling tickets for the Saratoga concert on its website, and Rexall Centre officials confirmed the Toronto show to The Vindicator.
Tickets for the Covelli Centre concert aren’t on sale yet.
The city-owned center is rarely used during the summer months. But not this year.
In addition to Manilow, the center will have Motley Crue, Poison and the New York Dolls in concert July 29, a comedy show with Jeff Dunham on July 13 and a “blues fest” with Buddy Guy and Robert Cray on June 25.
Manilow had two dozen Top 40 songs between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s including “Mandy,” “Could It Be Magic,” “I Write the Songs,” “Weekend in New England,” “Can’t Smile Without You” and “Copacabana (At the Copa).”
He was a mainstay at the Las Vegas Hilton between February 2005 and December 2009, performing about 300 concerts there. Manilow’s been the headliner at the Paris Las Vegas on the Vegas Strip since March 2010. He is scheduled to have 51 concerts there between July and December.