Music Awards

Ska FestCome to a Ska Fest on Sunday at the Eight by Ten Club, 10 E. Cross St., and groove to the tunes of the Pilfers, the Smooths (pictured) and Springhill Jack USA. Show time is 8 p.m. Tickets are $9 in advance and $10 at the door. Call 410-625-2000.Chamber Music Awards competitionListen to Maryland's best emerging music ensembles when they compete for cash awards and the opportunity to perform at Artscape beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday in the Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall, Peabody Conservatory of Music, 1 E. Mount Vernon Place.

The deadline for entering the 1999 Chamber Music Awards, sponsored by the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Art and Culture, was listed incorrectly in yesterday's Today section. The correct date for entering preliminary audition tapes is Nov. 20.The Sun regrets the error.Classical instrumental chamber music ensembles have until Nov. 22 to enter preliminary audition tapes for the 1999 Baltimore Chamber Music Awards.The annual competition was launched in 1988 by Laura Burrows-Jackson and the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Art Culture to provide recognition and financial support to members of the chamber music community.

Over the years, there have been some pretty unexpected things on the music awards shows. We've seen Slash from Guns N' Roses cursing on the American Music Awards, Marilyn Manson baring his bottom on the MTV Video Music Awards, and Mr. Soy Bomb confusing Bob Dylan during the Grammys.But none of that was quite as shocking as the sight of a mosh pit at the CMA Awards.Granted, the pit was pretty sedate, as such things go, consisting entirely of well-mannered young girls. (This was the Country Music Association, after all.)

A famous son talks about his even more famous father tonight on the History Channel."You Gotta See This!" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WMAR, Channel 2) -- Daisy Fuentes is the host, as helmet cameras enable viewers to watch close-up as people surf the famed Banzai Pipeline, ride a bucking bronco, fly a stunt plane, spar with a world-champion boxer and ride a killer whale. And despite the title, you don't hafta watch it. ABC."A Friend's Betrayal" (8 p.m.-10 p.m., WBAL, Channel 11) -- Sharon Lawrence plays a "hip New York designer" who's sleeping with her best friend's son. Apparently, this places stress on their friendship.

While the other networks concentrate on repeats, Fox is using the summer to try out a few new series. Thank goodness; at least there's something on TV we haven't seen before."

Remember when the MTV Video Music Awards defined the cutting edge in musical taste and television spectacle?It seems so long ago now -- especially after watching last night's 1995 Video Music Awards broadcast.It was a good night for TLC, which won Best Video of the Year, Best R&B Video and the Viewer's Choice award, and it was a fair night for Weezer, which won Best Alternative Music Video and the Best Direction in a Video award. But that was as close as anyone came to sweeping the VMA's.

Actor and performance artist Anna Deavere Smith will present the local debut of her award-winning "Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities" June 13-25 at Center Stage.The offering, part of the theater's "Off Center" series, explores the violent 1991 clash between Lubavitcher Jews and African-Americans in Brooklyn. The work is composed from the words of people whom Ms. Smith interviewed about the issues of race and community, people ranging from the Rev. Al Sharpton to an anonymous Jewish housewife from Brooklyn.

April reruns bring May new ones: The May ratings period is in full sweep, which means, finally, we get a fresh episode of "NYPD Blue." It's been so long since ABC presented a first-run installment, I was beginning to think the "NYPD" stood for "Not Yet, Perhaps Doomsday."* "The 29th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards" (8 p.m.-conclusion, WMAR, Channel 2) -- Back in 1965, when the first annual CMA bash was held, the music was different, the festivities weren't ready for prime time, and country music was no big deal.

If you ever wanted to see a real-life example of grace under pressure, all you had to do was watch Reba McEntire on the 29th annual Academy of Country Music (ACM) Awards last night.There she stood, as charming and poised as ever, watching co-host Alan Jackson win award after award -- Record of the Year for "Chattahoochie," Album of the Year for "A Lot About Livin' (And a Little 'Bout Love)" -- while she just lost, lost, lost.She lost the Video of the Year award to Garth Brooks, whose relentlessly uplifting "We Shall All Be Free" clip beat out McEntire's soap-operatic duet with Linda Davis, "Does He Love You."

IN ITS brief eight-year career, the "MTV Music Video Awards" has easily become the hippest of the many rock awards TV shows around.The Grammys never quite figured out rock 'n' roll, let alone metal and rap; the American Music Awards are too locked into Top 40 success; the Billboard Music Awards are too tied into chart success; the International Rock Awards are too obscure to be as hip as they truly want to be.Which leaves MTV.Every artist wants his videos...

Music awards squeezed in between performances With performances by some of music's hottest acts - Beyonce, Christina Aguilera, Kanye West, the Jonas Brothers and 15 others - who needs awards? The American Music Awards, presented yesterday during a live broadcast on ABC, kept with its long-held tradition of wedging prizes in between action-packed performances. "This year more than ever," said Orly Adelson, president of dick clark productions, which puts on the show, said last week. "We have 19 performances, which we've never done before ... Every big artist this year said yes, and we wanted them all."

There is no room for stodginess, and glittery pretension is left outside. Unlike any other awards show, the BET Awards come close to approximating the keeping-it-real, party vibe of a black family reunion, where everybody has returned home extremely successful, looking flashy and fly. Mutual love and respect are shown between the older musicians who paved the way and the younger ones keeping the flame alive. The BET Awards, airing Tuesday with Baltimore actress-comedian Mo'Nique as host, have been a smash for the Black Entertainment Television cable network since the show's launch in 2001.

DUBLIN, Ireland -- When Shane MacGowan lurches into the Morrison hotel on a recent Thursday afternoon, clutching a cocktail, half the people in the lobby begin to breathe again. The famously damaged frontman for the Irish folk-punk band the Pogues is usually late by several hours, but MacGowan was delayed overnight by emergency surgery on an abscess under one of his few remaining, rotted teeth. In four hours he and the band are scheduled to arrive on the red carpet at the Meteor Ireland Music Awards, the country's equivalent of the Grammys, where the Pogues will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Critic's Pick-- Pop salutes top sellers at the Billboard Music Awards (8 p.m.-10 p.m., WBFF, Channel 45). Tom Petty (above) gets a lifetime achievement trophy.

Ask Erykah Badu about her music -- what inspires it, what keeps it fresh -- and she becomes metaphorical. "Have you ever had some hot tea when you had a cold? Some good tea?" she asks, her voice mellow with an old-soul Southern accent. "It works and makes you feel better, don't it? My music, I think, is like some good tea." Phoning from her Dallas home, the artist continues: "Each album has its own life. I'm not the same person I was in 1997." These days, Badu, who will play the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall Tuesday night, is much richer in several ways.

Ska FestCome to a Ska Fest on Sunday at the Eight by Ten Club, 10 E. Cross St., and groove to the tunes of the Pilfers, the Smooths (pictured) and Springhill Jack USA. Show time is 8 p.m. Tickets are $9 in advance and $10 at the door. Call 410-625-2000.Chamber Music Awards competitionListen to Maryland's best emerging music ensembles when they compete for cash awards and the opportunity to perform at Artscape beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday in the Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall, Peabody Conservatory of Music, 1 E. Mount Vernon Place.

The deadline for entering the 1999 Chamber Music Awards, sponsored by the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Art and Culture, was listed incorrectly in yesterday's Today section. The correct date for entering preliminary audition tapes is Nov. 20.The Sun regrets the error.Classical instrumental chamber music ensembles have until Nov. 22 to enter preliminary audition tapes for the 1999 Baltimore Chamber Music Awards.The annual competition was launched in 1988 by Laura Burrows-Jackson and the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Art Culture to provide recognition and financial support to members of the chamber music community.

Over the years, there have been some pretty unexpected things on the music awards shows. We've seen Slash from Guns N' Roses cursing on the American Music Awards, Marilyn Manson baring his bottom on the MTV Video Music Awards, and Mr. Soy Bomb confusing Bob Dylan during the Grammys.But none of that was quite as shocking as the sight of a mosh pit at the CMA Awards.Granted, the pit was pretty sedate, as such things go, consisting entirely of well-mannered young girls. (This was the Country Music Association, after all.)

A famous son talks about his even more famous father tonight on the History Channel."You Gotta See This!" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WMAR, Channel 2) -- Daisy Fuentes is the host, as helmet cameras enable viewers to watch close-up as people surf the famed Banzai Pipeline, ride a bucking bronco, fly a stunt plane, spar with a world-champion boxer and ride a killer whale. And despite the title, you don't hafta watch it. ABC."A Friend's Betrayal" (8 p.m.-10 p.m., WBAL, Channel 11) -- Sharon Lawrence plays a "hip New York designer" who's sleeping with her best friend's son. Apparently, this places stress on their friendship.

While the other networks concentrate on repeats, Fox is using the summer to try out a few new series. Thank goodness; at least there's something on TV we haven't seen before."