For most artists, performing at the Hollywood Bowl for the first time is exciting enough on its own. Then again, most artists aren't Barry Manilow. The legendary singer is as surprised as anyone that he hasn't yet played the venue -- "I know, I'm old, I'm 95 years old and I've never played the Hollywood Bowl," he tells Spinner -- so he's making his first gig there an even "bigger deal."

To do this, Manilow is adding a pre-show VIP meet-and-greet that will benefit his Manilow Fund and raise money for giving musical instruments to schools. "I wanted to add a little fun," he says. "It's all about getting instruments into the schools. Music departments and music classes, they're going downhill and when I realized that I figured I'd try to figure out a way of making some help there."

Like many musicians, Manilow knows the value of music education from his own experiences. "It taught me about interacting with other people [and] my grades went up," he says. This soiree will raise money specifically for L.A. schools, but Manilow hopes to take it to other places as well. "I don't tour very much anymore, but when we do it's the first thing on the agenda to see if we can do this kind of thing around the country," he says.

When he does perform in November and December, he'll bring some seasonal joy to the occasion, as he just released a new holiday album, 'A Gift of Love,' on Oct. 13. That also happened to be the same release day for seasonal works by two other famous Jewish singers, Neil Diamond and Bob Dylan. "Oh, isn't that something?" he asks. "I had heard Neil and Bob Dylan were releasing Christmas albums, but I didn't know it was the same day."

While he says, "I have no idea what they've done," he can tell us about his. "Mine is more of a jazz-oriented Christmas album, easy jazz, Bill Evans jazz, very saloon-oriented," he says. "Real nice for Christmas."

Manilow performs at the Hollywood Bowl on Oct. 24.