Enjoy lunch compliments of BuzzAngle Music.
Doors open at 12:15 PM. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.Our favorite time of the year … recognizing career excellence and creativity in our industry with the prestigious Music Biz Awards!
The event will kick off as we honor two of the year’s hottest new stars with Breakthrough Artist Awards – Warner Bros’
Lukas Graham and Columbia Nashville’s
Maren Morris. Lukas Graham, a Danish pop band, was crowned one of the biggest breakout act of 2016, earning three GRAMMY nominations for their smash single “7 Years,” including Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. The band, which is led by vocalist and songwriter Lukas Forchhammer, has reached the top of the charts with 2 billion streams worldwide and achieved Certified Gold status on their debut self-titled album. Rising Country star, Maren Morris, released her debut album for Columbia Nashville, HERO, on June 3, 2016, becoming the label’s first artist of the SoundScan era to top the Billboard Country chart with his/her first album. Morris’ Platinum-certified single, “My Church” also won Best Country Solo Performance at the 2017 GRAMMY Awards in addition to her nominations for Best Country Song, Best New Artist and Best Country Album for HERO.
The honorable Harry Chapin Memorial Humanitarian Award will be presented to award-winning choreographer and performer, multi-Platinum recording artist, and television personality
Paula Abdul in recognition of her active roles as a spokesperson and advocate for national charity organizations. Selected to be an ambassador of We.org, she uplifts and empowers tens of thousands of youths in cities all over the globe as a speaker for We Day — a movement that brings together world-renowned speakers and performers to celebrate the power young people have to change the world. This year, Abdul partnered with Turnaround Arts to adopt a school in Brooklyn, NY, and to help foster arts education in impoverished schools across the nation.
This year's prestigious Artist of the Year Award will honor record-breaking Pop superstar,
Adele. Her latest album, 25, was the first ever to sell more than 3 million copies in a single week (3.38 million total in traditional sales), blowing past the 15-year record previously held by NSYNC’s No Strings Attached. It was also the first album to sell more than 1 million copies in multiple weeks since Nielsen began tracking sales in 1991, with 1.11 million traditional sales in its second week and 1.15 million in its holiday-bolstered fifth week. 25 has since been certified Diamond for 10 million in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), with the album and its single “Hello” earning Adele five GRAMMY Awards at this year’s 59th annual ceremony, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Pop Solo Performance.
The Outstanding Achievement Award will celebrate the massive success of the
Hamilton Original Cast Recording and the
Hamilton Mixtape albums. The Hamilton Original Cast Recording, which has been certified 3x-Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), scored the highest Billboard 200 debut week for a cast recording in over half a century at #12, became the first-ever Broadway cast album to reach #1 on the Billboard Top Rap Albums chart, and was the best-selling Broadway cast album of both 2015 and 2016. The Hamilton Mixtape — produced by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter of The Roots and featuring Busta Rhymes, Nas, Usher, Sia, Kelly Clarkson, Alicia Keys, Wiz Khalifa, John Legend, Common, Chance The Rapper, and more — posted the largest first-week sales for a compilation album since 2012, becoming the first compilation to top the Billboard 200 chart in two years.
The multi-award-winning Country recording artist and multimedia entertainment mogul
Reba McEntire will receive the 2017 Chairman’s Award for Sustained Creative Achievement. McEntire’s latest album, Sing It Now: Songs of Faith and Hope, was released jointly through Big Machine Label Group’s NASH Icon Records and the Capitol Christian Music Group in February 2017, topping both the Billboard Country and Christian/Gospel charts for multiple weeks. The double-disc collection marks McEntire’s 13th ascent to #1 and features both traditional hymns and contemporary tracks. Fans from both genres and beyond continue to embrace the lead single, “Back to God,” whose music video has surpassed 6 million views to date.
