Skip to main content

Celebrity Series Presents Neil Sedaka

Posted on Monday, November 10, 2008

Westminster College's Celebrity Series will feature singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka in concert Friday, Nov. 21, at 7:30 p.m. in Orr Auditorium. The show, originally scheduled for September, was re-scheduled due to illness.

Sedaka, whose early training was in classical music, was voted one of the best New York high school pianists at age 16 by Arthur Rubinstein. In high school, he formed a rock-and-roll group to gain acceptance from his peers.

His collaboration with Howard Greenfield began a prolific songwriting partnership that sold 25 million records between 1959 and 1963.

After Connie Francis and others recorded Sedaka songs that became hits, Sedaka signed with RCA to write and perform his own material. Some his best known pieces are "Laughter in the Rain," "Breaking up is Hard to Do," and "Calendar Girl."

In 2004, Sedaka received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Popular Music/Songwriters Hall of Fame in recognition of his outstanding achievements in furthering the success of songwriters.

The show is sponsored by Balph, Nicolls, Mitsos, Flannery & Clark, Attorneys at Law, in New Castle.

A new feature offered is a pre-show buffet dinner in the Witherspoon Rooms of McKelvey Campus Center. Tickets for the meal are $25 for a single, $48 for a couple and do not include the price of the concert ticket.

Seats are still available for the concert and for the dinner. Contact Connie McGinnis, assistant director of the Celebrity Series, at (724) 946-7354 (e-mail mcginncl@westminster.edu) for reservations or visit www.westminster.edu/Celebrity for more information.