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Awards
Musicians call for reversal on Grammy revamp plans
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 27 May 2011
A coalition of American musicians has called for plans to cut 31 categories from next year’s Grammy Awards to be axed, at a protest outside a board meeting of award organisers the Recording Academy in Beverly Hills.
As previously reported, plans to cut some of the Grammy’s 109 categories were announced last month. Gender specific awards will be abolished, some instrumental categories are being phased out, and Hawaiian, Native American, Zydeco/Cajun and polka gongs are being merged into a ‘regional roots’ award.
The protestors say the reductions unfairly target ethnic music, and that the changes were made without consulting thousands of Academy members. Their campaign is supported by some high profile musicians, including Paul Simon and Carlos Santana.
But the boss of the US awards show, Neil Portnow, told reporters it was untrue to say non-mainstream categories were only affected by the changes, noting that the number of mainstream awards would be cut from 34 to 20 as part of the revamp. He added that the category changes would go ahead next year whatever, but that he hoped the protestors would work with the Academy to assess how the alternations work out on the night, and help review things for 2013.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the protestors were not especially appeased by that. Calling for Portnow’s resignation, four times Grammy nominee Bobby Sanabria, told reporters: “[Portnow is] being arrogant in saying that it’s written in stone [for 2012] when we have a chance to get these categories reinstated”.
