This year, the music industry’s biggest night of celebration will pay tribute to the strength, spirit and resilience of New York City, live from Brooklyn’s own Barclays Center. That’s right, the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) got the green light from Governor Andrew Cuomo last week, and on Sunday, August 30, the show will go on with some tweaks from the usual format. “We’re elated to bring the 2020 VMAs back to NYC, the cultural mecca of the world where music and entertainment are woven into the DNA,” said Bruce Gillmer, president of Music, Music Talent, Programming & Events for ViacomCBS Media Networks. Spanning all five boroughs, the festivities will bring together music fans worldwide with featured performances from many of the city’s iconic landmarks and locations, as the show is broadcast to nearly 450 million households in more than 180 countries. Signature awards include “Video of the Year” and the “Video Vanguard Award,” which was given to Missy Elliot in 2019. For the 2020 VMAs, which will be the first event at Barclays Center since the pandemic hit New York, MTV assures that the safety of artists, fans, staff and partners is of the “utmost importance.” Though nothing is set in stone yet, a collaboration between show producers, Barclays Center management and local officials has targeted several key principles to ensure safety, including extensive social distancing procedures, “meaningful” capacity limitations, incorporating virtual components whenever possible, and potentially eliminating an audience. A release from MTV states that details of the precautions to be taken “will come at a later date based on the science and data in New York.’ “We’re very excited to once again host this legendary night of music, and are especially proud of the impact it will have on our Brooklyn community through the creation of local jobs,” Barclays Center and Brooklyn Nets CEO Oliver Weisberg said in a statement. “We deeply appreciate the support and advice of state and local government officials, as well as our internal management and team of medical experts, all of whom have been working hard to ensure the health and safety of everyone involved,” he added.

Kupferberg Center for the Arts (KCA) can’t hold its annual summer concert series at Gantry Plaza State Park this season, but that isn’t keeping the Queens College venue from entertaining audiences with multicultural musical productions. This year, “2020 Live at the Gantries Online” will offer a series of virtual performances in a virtual space, instead of on the Long Island City waterfront. Show start at 7 p.m. each Tuesday, followed by live Q&A sessions with the artists, all streamed on KCA’s YouTube and Facebook pages. The first of eight performances launched this week, with Nixtaband, a contemporary jazz ensemble made up of Queens College alumni and musicians based in New York City and Mexico, delivering jazz-folk fusion using Afro-Cuban, South American, Afro-American and Mexican rhythms. On July 14, Kalunga, The Duo Sessions will perform a classical sound with a modern twist. Award-winning percussionist Javier Diaz and world-class oboist Toyin Spellman-Diaz team up to orchestrate an exciting blend of Afro-Latin music and crossover chamber music. This show will be followed by a short master class on Batá percussion. The remainder of the “2020 Live at the Gantries Online” roster consists of eclectic acts such as New York-based jug band The Salt Cracker Crazies, Brooklyn Raga Massive and The Chivalrous Crickets. "So much of the extraordinary vibrancy that Queens is known for is represented in the wide variety of diverse musical acts participating in the Live at the Gantries series," said Queens College president-designate Frank Wu. "Now, as online performances, they provide us with a significant opportunity to share the rich cultural fabric of our borough with a worldwide audience." A full lineup for “Live at the Gantries 2020” is available at kupferbergcenter.org