News
November 16, 20202020 Eddies Music Awards Postponed
Three 2020 Capital Region Thomas Music Award nominees and a former award winner have been announced as performers for the live broadcast of the award show on Dec. 6.
Jocelyn and Chris, Garland Nelson, Promise the Unbreakable™ and Marty Wendell will perform live from the Great Hall stage at Universal Preservation Hall. Nelson will also be doing double duty as the event emcee.
Jocelyn and Chris lead all Eddies Music nominees this year with four nominations: Solo / Duo Artist of the Year, Rock / Pop Art of the Year, Video of the Year and Album of the Year. Garland Nelson was a two-time 2019 winner; his band Soul Session won Party Cover Band of the Year and he also won R&B/Soul Artist of the Year. Promise the Unbreakable™ was nominated for Hip Hop/Rap Artist of the Year in 2019 and again in 2020. Wendell is a 2020 nominee for Country / Bluegrass Artist of the Year.
“Once again we tried to bring to the stage diverse musical styles,” said Sal Prizio, co-founder and coproducer of the event, now in its second year. “We’ve got country, hip hop, R&B and rock represented this year.”
The 2020 Eddies Music Awards were originally scheduled to be held at Proctors in April. The performance line-up – unannounced at the time of postponement due to the pandemic – included some of the same performers as scheduled in December and some different ones. “Our opening number was to feature three artists together and made interesting use of the MainStage at Proctors,” said Jim Murphy, cofounder and co-producer. “It was the sort of production that requires a live audience. And we needed to cut down on the amount of people on the set for safety reasons. So, we’re saving it for 2021.”
The 100-minute award show – presented by KeyBank – will also include four panel discussions about the local year in music with over 20 individuals working in the industry participating, as well as award announcements in 34 categories. Panel hosts and participants will be announced in late November. Nominees and winners were chosen by a panel of approximately 100 professionals including musicians; music journalists; sound, recording and light professionals; radio station disc jockeys; music venue operators; and others in the field.
The event – with start time of 7 p.m. – will be captured on a closed set at UPH by Chromoscope Pictures of Troy and broadcast on Collaborative Studios’ Amazon Fire TV, Roku and Apple TV apps; Spectrum channel 1302 (Albany and Schenectady); Verizon FiOs Channel 37 (Albany); YouTube (search Collaborative Media); and Facebook.
