The post The Apollo Theater Hosts Its 10th Annual Spring Gala – Good News Celebrates Black History Month. We are always Honored to share the Good News of the Apollo. appeared first on Good News!.

The Award pays tribute to an Individual whose accomplishments transcend the entertainment industry by positively redefining the very culture we live in. Bennett joins superstars Tom Cruise, Robert De Niro, Douglas Fairbanks, Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra as the sixth Entertainment Icon Award recipient since the Friars launched in 1904.

One of the most respected talents in entertainment, no one else in popular American music has recorded for so long and at such a high level of excellence as Tony Bennett. Bennett has received 18 Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He is also one of a handful of artists to have new albums charting in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and now the first two decades of the 21st century. His contribution to the American Songbook has included such chart toppers as Rags to Riches, Who Can I Turn To (WhenNobody Needs Me) and his signature, I Left My Heart In San Francisco. He is also an accomplished painter and author.

“I have enjoyed being associated with the Friars Club over the years and it is an absolute thrill to be receiving the Icon Award this year. I have so many wonderful memories of events I attended at the Friars and I look forward to the evening in June, “ says Tony Bennett.

Throughout his career, Bennett has been a driving force behind several humanitarian causes. He has raised millions of dollars for the Juvenile Diabetes

Foundation, which established a research fund in his name. His original paintings each year grace the cover of the American Cancer Society’s annual holiday greeting cards with proceeds earmarked for cancer research. Active in environmental concerns and social justice, he marched with Dr. Martin Luther King in the historical Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights movement and the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta bestowed upon him their Salute to Greatness Award for his efforts in fighting racial discrimination. With his wife Susan, they established EXPLORING THE ARTS, to support arts education in public high schools and founded with the NYC Department of Education, Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Tony’s hometown of Astoria, Queens. EXPLORING THE ARTS supports and partners with 23 public art high schools in New York City and Los Angeles.

The Friars Icon Award recognizes Bennett’s achievements, both professionally and philanthropically, as Friars Club Abbot Jerry Lewis notes, “The Friars are proud to acknowledge all that Tony Bennett has accomplished throughout his incredibly successful career. And we are thrilled that 50 of those years have been as a member of our legendary fraternal family. His invaluable contributions to entertainment and the arts, along with his tireless humanitarian efforts, have earned him our coveted Icon Award.”

Lewis added, “As if his stellar career wasn’t enough, that fact that it was our own Friar Bob Hope who suggested he change his name from Anthony Dominick Benedetto to Tony Bennett, means that it was only a matter of time that we’d find a way to unite the two Friar Icons for all time.”

About the Friars Club

The Friars Club was founded in 1904 as a meeting place for entertainers and over the years has achieved legendary status. Its membership includes the likes of Jimmy Fallon, Jon Stewart, Brian Williams, Barbra Streisand, Jerry Seinfeld, Rosario Dawson, Tom Cruise, Les Moonves, Whitney Cummings, Samuel L. Jackson and Robert De Niro. The Friars Club “Monastery” is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan in a classic townhouse and is a haven for entertainers young and old.

The post FRIARS CLUB TO HONOR TONY BENNETT WITH COVETED ENTERTAINMENT ICON AWARD appeared first on Good News!.

Child Spark Initiative is a platform created for children between the ages of eight and thirteen years from African migrant communities to engage with children from host communities in the United States of America. It provides opportunities for these communities to express, foster and celebrate their shared humanity. The hope of this interaction is racial harmony, cultural exchange, peace and progress.

Child Spark Initiative Inc. is essentially a performing arts organization that develops, promotes and celebrates creativity in children. Its first major project is Child Spark Choir which features fifty-four children, symbolically representing the fifty-four countries in Africa. In addition to screenings and select performances in cities with largest African migrant populations, this choir will sing with children from other countries, especially from continental Africa, the Caribbean Islands and Europe. The choir will also engage the services of prominent celebrity vocalists and music icons to perform new songs with positive and uplifting messages based on themes of love, kindness, charity and peace.

Child Spark Choir is not a standing choir. It is designed to create opportunity for different groups of people and individuals to participate every other year. Besides, the entire process will be filmed to produce a TV documentary mini-series for audiences on television and the internet. Original songs will be produced and performed with some revenue generated from sponsorships, merchandizing, donations, ticket sales and online-downloads. This revenue will enable Child Spark Initiative meet a major objective of providing financial, material and moral support for disadvantaged children in Africa and much of the developing world in their struggle against poverty, diseases, disabilities and hunger.

Child Spark Initiative is also collaborating with Teewai-Gold Media to produce the first edition of its “SHARE-A-SMILE PHOTO CONTEST”. Over one thousand entrants are expected to participate in this contest. The winning prize for the contest is a 10-Week Digital Photography Course at the prestigious International Center for Photography in New York. Other prizes include cameras, laptops, books and other branded gifts. The best photographs will be featured in a special coffee table publication and exhibitions to raise awareness and support for the project.

Please visit our website at www.childsparkinitiative.org for more information on these projects and watch out for our fundraising activities, starting later this month. Fractured Atlas is the fiscal sponsor for Child Spark Choir and all contributions are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

The post Introducing: CHILD SPARK INITIATIVE appeared first on Good News!.

David Ippolito is an American singer/songwriter/playwright who lives in New York City. He has self-released eight albums and is best known for his weekly summer performances in Central Park, which are attended by thousands of people. He styles himself as “That Guitar Man from Central Park.”^[1]

Career

In 1992, intending only to make a little lunch money, Ippolito unknowingly began a fascinating journey and an unusual career by performing an impromptu concert on a hill in Central Park in front of a few people who gathered. Among those present was editor Jack Rosenthal from the New York Times, who the next day published an editorial about the performance.^[2] The next week, Ippolito played again, and began to gather a following. For the last 20 years, he has performed on a hill near a picturesque rowboat lake almost every summer weekend to large crowds of passers-by and regulars, including visitors from around the globe, and has become a beloved New York icon, creating an intimate “It’s Just Us” feeling no matter how big his audience.^[1][3]

Ippolito sings covers by James Taylor, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Harry Chapin, Paul Simon, Tom Petty, Jason Mraz, Matt Nathanson, and more.

His latest and 8th CD, “Wouldn’t Want It Any Other Way,” released in autumn 2009, includes the song “Resolution,” which seeks investigation of U.S. government officials who approved water-boarding and other torture. This song’s powerful music video, which was posted pre-release of the album on YouTube, inspired a series of prime-time TV ads urging Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor. The album also features “Keep Hope Alive,” which was co-written with Sid Bernstein, the legendary music promoter who brought the Beatles to America.

Ippolito, known for his storytelling skills and sense of humor, has funny conversations with audience members during his shows and sometimes tosses granola candy bars into the crowd. On special holiday weekends, he also gives away hundreds of free hot dogs and slices of pizza. Just-married couples often stop by after their wedding to share their first dance, as Ippolito serenades them with a romantic song and the crowd sings along.

Ippolito also performs at venues throughout New York City, including an annual December performance at Merkin Concert Hall, as well as year-round shows at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia, Symphony Space, The Red Lion on Bleecker Street, and Cast Party at the Birdland Music Club.

Yet it is his own original music that impresses fans from all over the world, who check in on his website’s daily blog: www.thatguitarman.com. There are songs about lost love (“Wedding in Danville,” “Another 15 Years,” “Did You Fall in Love Again,” “Some Wounds Never Heal”); romance (“I Can’t Wait,” “The Perfect Girl for Me,” “Oak Beach Inn,” “You Might be Her”); sex (“Internet Angel”); trust (“Just Hafta Trust Me,” “Tired of Being Lied To”); religion (“The Religion Song”); passing of a loved one (“Here Today”); self-improvement (“Next Time Around”); self-belief (“Don’t Let It Hold You Back,” “When Mary Learns to Fly”); friendship and support (“I Love the Company,” “Crazy on the Same Day”); and self-direction (“Any Other Way,” “Wherever I Might Land,” “Don’t Lose Sight of the Dream”), as well as topics of social conscience (“Where’s the Voice?”, “Common Ground,” “The Last Protest Song,” “Can’t You See?” “Hey American”). Ippolito also writes clever, satirical songs about celebrities (“Tom Cruise Scares Me,” “Free Paris (Hilton)”); politicians (“Don’t Know Palin”); pundits (“Bill O’Reilly: The Big Talking Head”); white-collar criminals (“Where’dat Money Go?”); TV personalities (“A Special Kind of Friendship” about Stephen Colbert, and “Glenn Beck Scares Me”); and obnoxious people (“The Cell Phone Guy: Talk Louder”). “Hermione Got Hot!” is an ode to grown-up Emma Watson and the latest Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows film and “Facebook Is a Stupid Idiot” (subtitled “What the F*#k is Farmville?!”) is a hilarious personal spin on the social media force. His newest song, “Can’t You See?” addresses the growing political divide in the United States.

Press coverage

Ippolito’s performances have been covered many times by the New York Times, the New York Post, The Daily News, Parade Magazine, PBS, CBS-TV, ABC-TV, and WB-11 news. He is also prominently profiled in Following Dreams, a one-hour documentary filmed five years ago and released in 2009 from Iron Zeal Films. It is currently airing nationally on American Public Television. Director Susan Polis Schutz and her crew traveled across the United States and South America to explore the lives of ordinary Americans with extraordinary dreams.

Central Park

Ippolito’s concerts are a well-known draw in Central Park. However, in 2000, the Parks Department ordered him (and all other musicians in the park) to unplug his small speaker, which led to public outcry and letters to the New York Times by supportive audience members.^[4] The current arrangement is that he has to select a month in advance which dates he wants to play, as well as pay for each permit, rain or shine.^[5] On the Sunday after the September 11 attacks, approximately 1,000 of his fans filled his guitar case in Central Park with more than $7,000, which Ippolito, the son of a retired New York City firefighter, delivered to Ladder Company 25 and the 9/11 Fund.

I Love the Company

During 2006, Ippolito hosted a daily podcast called “I Love the Company,” which was broadcast globally via Podshow.com. The 365+ podcasts featured new works by Ippolito and music by singers and songwriters around the world, which was joined by an “I Love the Video” videocast.^[6]

Playwriting and other work

As an actor, Ippolito has had roles in national TV commercials and musical theater productions. Ippolito’s song, “City Song,” was used to close NBC‘s television coverage of the 2001 New York City Marathon. He has appeared on ABC‘s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire“, winning $64,000.^[1] A playwright and storyteller, his work has been performed at The Soho Playhouse and The Actors Studio. Ippolito is currently workshopping his new musical project for the stage, “Possibility Junkie.”

Discography

• The People on the Hill (1997)
• That Guitar Man from Central Park…In Person (1998)
• Just a Thought for Christmas (1999)
• It’s Just Us (2000)
• Crazy on the Same Day (2002)
• Talk Louder (the Cell Phone Song) (2003)
• Common Ground (2004)
• I Love the Company (2007)
• Crazy on the Same Day (re-mastered in 2008)
• Wouldn’t Want It Any Other Way (2009)

The post David Ippolito appeared first on Good News!.