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Grammy-award winner Charles Fox has composed classics like Ready to Take a Chance Again, I Got a Name and Killing Me Softly With His Song. His TV show theme songs include The Love Boat, Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, and Love American Style, and he has composed the musical scores for over 100 motion pictures and television films. The world’s most famous artists have recorded Charles’ songs, including Sarah Vaughn, Barry Manilow, Fred Astaire, Luther Vandross, Johnny Cash, Lena Horne, Tito Puente, Ray Barretto, Carly Simon, and Jose Feliciano, to name a few. Charles has also composed music for the concert hall and ballet. His ballet A Song for Dead Warriors, continues to be performed by The Dance Theatre of Harlem. He has also written numerous works for orchestra, chorus and chamber groups. Charles was inducted into the Songwriter Hall of Fame in 2004. He is currently serving as a Governor of the Motion Picture Academy. Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter/pianist/actress Melissa Manchester’s earliest performances were in Greenwich Village clubs, where she met Bette Midler and became a back-up singer for her. Six months later Melissa had a recording contract, and went on to headline at Carnegie Hall and Radio City Music Hall, and performed for sold-out audiences across the country. Her megahits include Midnight Blue, Through The Eyes Of Love, and Don't Cry Out Loud as well as songwriting classics like Whenever I Call You Friend, which she co-wrote with Kenny Loggins.
Combining singing and acting, Melissa’s theater credits include starring in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Song And Dance and Music Of The Night and Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. Melissa recently received the Governor’s Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for her contributions to the music and recording arts, and her body of work to date as a singer/songwriter was a featured exhibit at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum. Tony Orlando has conquered virtually every facet of show business. Two songs recorded on a fluke, Candida and Knock Three Times, became #1 hits before he gave up his "day job" as a VP at CBS Records, and got together with Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent Wilson to form Tony Orlando and Dawn. A string of hits like Sweet Gypsy Rose and He Don’t Love You and a highly-rated TV variety show followed. Their 1973 recording, Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round The Ole Oak Tree, was number one for the year and grew into an American anthem of hope and homecoming. The yellow ribbon has welcomed home POWs from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, the hostages from Iran and the troops from Desert Storm. Tony is a popular headliner in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Reno, Biloxi and Laughlin and at performing arts centers around the country. He has received three American Music Awards and a People’s Choice Award and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Judy Reyes is best known as the popular, no-nonsense nurse Carla Espinosa on Scrubs, the ten-time Emmy nominated comedy. The actress/singer/dancer, born and raised in the Bronx along with 3 sisters, discovered her calling while performing at a talent show for her mother’s church. She studied theater at Hunter College and is a founding member of the LAByrinth Theatre Company in Manhattan. In addition to her many film credits, Judy starred in, produced and co-directed the independent film Glow Ropes: The Rise and Fall of a Bar Mitzvah Emcee, which won the Best Film award at the 2005 HBO New York Latino Film Festival. Judy’s television credits include Little Girl Lost: The Delimar Vera Story and a star turn opposite fellow Bronx Walk of Fame inductee Doris Roberts in the 2006 Hallmark original movie Our House. She has appeared on Oz, The Sopranos, Third Watch, NYPD Blue, and Law and Order, among many others. Theodore Livingston aka GrandWizzard Theodore is known worldwide for inventing two essential elements in the hip hop DJ art form: the "scratch" and the "needle drop". At the age of 13, Theodore unintentionally invented the scratch when his mother yelled at him to lower the music, and he momentarily moved the record back and forth. Theodore went on to perfect the technique, becoming so skilled as a DJ that other DJs had to team up to battle him. Theodore was a member of the L Brothers and the Fantastic Five and starred in the cult movie classic "WildStyle." The GrandWizzard continues to rock parties internationally, judge DJ battles and teach DJ master classes. He has won numerous awards, served as a panelist at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Hip Hop Conference, and is featured in the DJ documentary Scratch which premiered in 2002, and he headlined a sold out 13 city US tour to promote the movie. |
