Glen Cove’s shoreline will echo with the sounds of Billy Joel’s greatest hits on July 6, the first day of the summer concert series, as the Morgan Park Summer Music Festival kicks off its 66th season with a performance by Richie Cannata and the Lords of 52nd Street.
The concert will begin at 7 p.m., marking Cannata’s first appearance battling cancer last year. “I’m so happy to be alive. I’m a walking miracle,” Cannata said. “I was given a 1 percent chance to live and to survive. Here I am driving, doing gigs and having a great life.”
The legendary saxophonist, best known for his work with Billy Joel, will be joined by fellow members of Joel’s original band, including Liberty DeVitto, Russell Javors, Anthony Bambino, Malcolm Gold, Doug Kistner and Dan Orlando. Together they’ll deliver a one-hour set of classic Joel hits.
Due to the shared bill, Cannata said the band won’t be performing its usual 90-minute show. “I’ve been asked to only do a short set because we’re sharing it with an opening act,” he told the Herald. “So I won’t be able to do my normal one-and-a-half-hour show. I’ll only be able to do maybe one hour. Because of that, we will be doing the hits, of course, people want to hear.”
Cannata, who has performed at the Suffolk Theater and Richfield Playhouse in recent weeks, said he is being selective about the shows he takes on as he has returned to the stage this year.
“Glen Cove is a big one for me, because it’s my home and a lot of my friends and family will be there,” he said. “It’s very important that we have a lot of people there that night. I think we will. It’s always been a very big turnout.”
For Cannata, the July performance will be more than a concert — it will be a celebration of life and resilience. “I think it’s most important that people come and see that I’m healthy and that I’m out there playing,” he said. “I would like to shake a lot of hands and see a lot of my friends that have supported me over the years.”
Glen Cove native Shye Roberts, who rose to national prominence as a finalist on Season 26 of NBC’s “The Voice” in 2024, will open the show. Though she now lives in Pennsylvania, Roberts said that returning to her hometown for this performance holds deep meaning.
“For me it’s about the community, which is so cliché to say, but it is,” she said. “I feel like it’s just about going back to where I came from and giving back to the people that I love so much.”
Roberts said she hasn’t made much money yet in her music career, but performing in Glen Cove is about more than that. “Even though I haven’t really profited off of this kind of situation yet that much, I really feel like people think so highly of me,” she said. “I think highly of my community of Glen Cove, and really, I just don’t want to let them down.”
Roberts will also be selling shirts and bracelets at the show, and hosting a raffle organized by her sister. “I never supported this idea,” she acknowledged, “but she said that it was a good idea to do a raffle where everybody enters in and the winner gets whatever song they want me to sing sung to them on a live phone call.”
The Glen Cove High School Select Chorale, an award-winning student ensemble, is among other performances throughout the summer series. The festival chairman, U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi, said that this year’s opening night is a celebration of exceptional talent from Glen Cove and beyond.
“We are thrilled to celebrate Richie Cannata’s return to the stage,” Suozzi said. “Extraordinary performers showcasing the depth of talent from Long Island, and Glen Cove, are the order of the night.”
Suozzi, whose parents founded the festival in 1959, has continued their legacy of bringing free professional performances to the community. His late father, former Mayor Joseph Suozzi, and community member Laura Pratt launched the first concert with the goal of making culture and entertainment accessible to all.
“They used to do one concert a year,” Tom Suozzi said. “The idea was to try and bring culture and entertainment to people that can’t necessarily afford to go into the city for a Broadway show. It’s gotten bigger and bigger and bigger every year.”
The all-volunteer, nonprofit festival has remained free to the public thanks to donations from individuals and local businesses, including a major contribution last year from Rallye Lexus. The Terian family and Rallye Motor Company are as the title sponsor for the 2025 season.
“It’s no cost to the taxpayers. It’s all volunteers. It’s all donations from our friends and neighbors,” Suozzi said. “We’re going to keep this going forever. It’s never going to stop.”
Concerts continue every Sunday through August at 7 p.m. in Morgan Memorial Park, the scenic 40-acre waterfront property donated to the city in 1926 by financier J.P. Morgan. “We have a great group of volunteers,” he said. “We’re always welcoming new people to our team.”
