“Goodbye Magic City, hello Big Apple!” That’s the message from organizers of the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards.
Miami hosted the event last year and the year before, but MTV said the 23rd annual VMA program will air live from Radio City Music Hall at 8 p.m., Aug. 31.
Last year’s event went on despite Hurricane Katrina hitting Miami Aug. 25, three days before the awards ceremony at the AmericanAirlines Arena.
Returning to New York brings the VMAs to the city for a 13th time and to Radio City Music Hall for a 10th time.
“New York City is our hometown and we are really looking to showcase the music, culture and people from every borough of this amazing city on TV, online, broadband and wireless to fans around the globe“, MTV President Christina Norman said.
The music television network has been based in New York City for the last 25 years.
MTV Awards Show to go back to New York
Roll up! Stones play world’s biggest beach party
WHAT a gas. The Rolling Stones brought the carnival spirit early to Brazil last night when they played a free concert to more than a million people on Rio de Janeiro’s fabled Copacabana beach, writes Maurice Chittenden.
They opened one of the world’s biggest beach parties with Jumping Jack Flash, their 1968 hit with lyrics about being born in a crossfire hurricane.
Fire department officials estimated the crowd was more than 1m when the show started but that more people were still coming. Officials estimated that as many as 2m would see the concert.
Some fans had camped out for days to get a prime spot on the 2.5 mile-long beach.
“It’s going to be an amazing show,” said 19-year-old Barbara de Carvalho, a student from Sao Paulo who had camped on the beach since Thursday.
A specially erected footbridge built at a cost of £250,000 took the Stones from their hotel over the beachfront Avenida Atlantica and directly to the stage.
The Stones spent £1m on setting up the gig; the city paid another £500,000, aware of its boost to tourism. A new stage was created especially for the show, decorated with a 45ft high design of palm leaves to add to the carnival theme.
Patrick Woodroffe, the Stones’ lighting designer, said: “I am sure anybody would be nervous going out in front of 1.5m people but there is nobody that does it better than the Stones.”
Romania Launches Music Festival in Honor of George Enescu
The international classical music festival George Enescu kicked off Sunday in Romania, marking 50 years since the death of the Romanian composer.
The festival features five Romanian orchestras and six other international orchestras — the Orchestre national de France, the Kirov Orchestra (of the Mariinsky Theater) from Russia, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Dresden Staatskapelle from Germany.
The program also included two ballet performances by the Eifman Theater from St. Petersburg, Russia, and concerts by the Lausanne and the Basel Chamber Orchestras from Switzerland.
Other performers include American-born opera singer Barbara Hendricks, the Magnus Quartet Jazz Project and British-based The King’s Consort, one of Europe’s leading period-instrument orchestras.
The festival, which is organized by the Romanian government under the patronage of President Traian Basescu, opened on the evening of 4th September with a concert by the Bucharest-based George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra.
The program included international contests in violin, piano and composition.
Performances will took place mainly in Bucharest, but some concerts have also been presented in the cities of Iasi, Cluj, Timisoara and Brasov. The festival lasts until September 20.