Michael Bolton to perform at Couples Sans Souci in May
Published:Tuesday | January 17, 2023 | 12:59 AMJanet Silvera/Senior Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
After five years of courting two-time Grammy Award winner Michael Bolton, Jamaica’s Issa Trust Foundation has sealed a deal that will see the American singer and songwriter performing at Couples Sans Souci in Ocho Rios on Saturday, May 27.
Bolton, who has sold more than 75 million records and recorded eight top 10 albums, last performed in Jamaica about 10 years ago when he rocked the grounds at the former Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival.
Funds made from the upcoming May event, dubbed ‘Issa Trust Foundation For the Children Charity Concert’, will be pumped into the construction of the Mary Issa Health Centre, a paediatric and adolescent care facility near Richmond, St Ann, Paul Issa, chairman of Issa Trust Foundation, told The Gleaner last Saturday during the Couples Resorts anniversary parties in Ocho Rios.
Paul Issa’s brother, Lee, owner and operator of Couples Resorts Jamaica, has donated the land for the health centre. Mary Issa was their grandmother.
“It will be the first health centre of its kind in Jamaica that caters only to children and adolescents,” said the foundation chair, noting that his grandmother was always looking after children, adopting and fostering them.
The foundation last did a concert in 2019 when they brought Air Supply, Third World and Koffee to the same venue.
The 501C3 non-profit, over the years, has focused on health and education. It has built several computer labs, along with organising medical missions, as well as renovating the paediatric ward at the St Ann’s Bay Hospital.
Issa says that having had tremendous success with the two Air Supply shows they have staged, they have not yet decided who will open for Bolton, but reveals that it will be an intimate affair, all aspects of the event being VIP.
“All food and drinks included, but we also had a VVIP section and haven’t decided on this year’s price structure,” he stated, stressing that everybody in attendance gets a seat so they won’t have masses of people. “We want people to be comfortable, and [we] are appealing to an audience that wants to go out and have a nice evening.”
Issa says he has been trying to get Bolton to Jamaica for the last five years, but were only recently able to work out a date. “And so we are very excited because he is very popular here.”
In the meantime, the Mary Issa Centre, he says, will be run in conjunction with the Ministry of Health and Wellness. He estimates that it will cost a little over US$1 million to construct the just under 9,000-square-foot facility, which would then need equipment.
They expect to source the equipment needed for the facility from donors. “We will have X-ray machines and ultrasound. We won’t have, like, an MRI, but we plan to use solar to power the centre,” said an optimistic Issa.
In the last 17 years since its inception, the Issa Trust Foundation has donated over US$40 million towards the public health sector.