Cristina Fontanelli Performs at 2013 Night on the Town

International recording artist and PBS host Cristina Fontanelli made a special appearance at the 2013 Mineola Night on the Town at Jericho Terrace on May 22, singing a pair of songs for the crowd at the charity function to help raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

“Harry said ‘please come and sing a song’,” she said, referring to the event’s organizer Harry Zapiti.

Fontanelli, who has sung for PBS on Andrea Bochelli’s program as well as for Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush and can do so in seven languages, performed the Barbara Streisand staple “The Way We Were” and “Torna A Surriento,” a Neopolitan folk song, in her operatic voice.

Regarding the latter, Fontanelli recalled that she was singing at an event in Little Italy 10 years ago when a New York Times reporter approached her asking about the song “and he didn’t know the name of it, I said ‘you know what, I’m going to start a show to preserve these great songs’.”

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