Who Cares About Music Awards?

Soundcheck | May 3, 2010

The 2005 Billboard Music Awards were announced last night. Today on Soundcheck, we ask: who cares? Have we become saturated with music awards shows? We speak with LA Times columnist Tom O'Neil. Kehinde Wiley is one of the the biggest art hits of the moment in New York, an artist who takes famous paintings of dead white European males and replaces them with characters from the world of hip hop. He previews his latest exhibition, "Rumors of War" at Deitch Projects. Also: fiddler Jay Ungar and the guitarist Molly Mason achieved international attention when their performance of Jay's haunting piece "Ashokan Farewell" became the musical hallmark of Ken Burns' The Civil War on PBS. The series soundtrack won a Grammy, and "Ashokan Farewell" was nominated for an Emmy. Today, Ungar and Mason join us with a live performance and preview their upcoming holiday special, to be broadcast on WNYC on Christmas Eve.

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