ARTS AND CULTURE

Barry Manilow

Musician

The composer of “Mandy,” “Can’t Smile Without You,” and “Copacabana” is still going strong at the age of 78 and is currently enjoying a successful residency in Las Vegas that has just been extended for another year. A singer who has always worn his Jewish identity with pride, 2022 was an important year for Manilow, whose musical “Harmony,” jointly written with his partner Bruce Sussman, was staged in New York by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. “Harmony” tells the story of the Comedian Harmonists, a performing troupe of Jews and Gentiles who combined close harmonies and stage antics in Germany during the 1920s and ‘30s as Nazi legislation banned Jewish performers from the country’s stages. “They were very inventive, so inventive that they were the first people to do the kind of harmonies we hear now,” Manilow explained in an interview. “And then all their records, all their music, all their movies, it was destroyed.” (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)