A pair of former American Idol finalists will help to ignite Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular.

Idol fifth-season runner-up Katharine McPhee and sixth-season champ Jordin Sparks will both celebrate the country's 232nd birthday by performing on NBC's Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular, a live one-hour special that will air Friday, July 4 at 9PM ET/PT.

This marks the second consecutive Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular that will feature Sparks, who also performed at last year's event with Idol sixth-season runner-up Blake Lewis and third-place finisher Melinda Doolittle. Sparks is currently scheduled to perform her newest single "One Step at a Time" at the event.

While she's mostly been focusing on her acting career as of late, McPhee is also currently working on her upcoming solo album with Grammy-winning songwriter and producer David Foster. She's currently scheduled to perform "Save the Last Dance for Me" at the event.

In addition to Sparks and McPhee, Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular will also feature performances by Natasha Bedingfield and Kenny Chesney. The event will be hosted by Today correspondents Natalie Morales and Tiki Barber.

And of course there will be fireworks -- specifically more than 35,000 shells exploding over New York City at a rate of 1,100 a minute. During the fireworks portion of the program, the New York Pops will perform a mix of American dance music and the patriotic standards.

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Jordin and Steph at a party in Houston that they hosted together:

Former American Idol winner Jordin Sparks has offered words of advice to the U.S. hit show’s newly crowned champion David Cook - telling him to get as much sleep as possible.

The singer congratulated triumphant contestant Cook, who scored a landslide victory over fellow finalist David Achuata at Wednesday’s series finale - achieving 12 million more votes than the 17-year-old hopeful.

But Sparks, who performed her hit No Air Round at the finale, says rocker Cook better be prepared for a hectic schedule, insisting she hasn’t had a decent night’s rest since she won the show last year.

She says, "Sleep as much as you can because you don’t get any sleep. It’s a year later and I still haven’t gotten a whole eight hours of sleep yet - I’m still reeling from winning last year." And when asked by People magazine who she wanted to be crowned as the winner of this year’s hit U.S. talent show, Sparks remained diplomatic, claiming she had voted for both finalists.
She says, "I voted for both of them last night so I can’t really say I had a favourite. I got to meet both of them and they were so sweet! Both of them are going to be fine. I’m so proud of both of them."