ECHO | |
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Awarded for | Outstanding achievements in the music industry |
Country | Germany |
Presented by | Deutsche Phono-Akademie |
First awarded | 1992 |
Official website | echopop |
Television/Radio coverage | |
Network | Das Erste (2009–present) |
Echo (stylised as ECHO, German pronunciation: [ˈɛço]) is an accolade by the Deutsche Phono-Akademie an association of recording companies of Germany to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry. The first ECHO Awards ceremony was held in 1992, and it was set up to honor musical accomplishments by performers for the year 1991, succeeding the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis which were awarded since 1963. Each year's winner is determined by the previous year's sales. Winners in the pop category are announced in March; the winners in the classical category in October.
First held with 350 people in the Flora in Cologne in 1992, the award ceremony in Frankfurt was televised and the classical awards were moved to a separate event, Echo Klassik, in Cologne in 1994. Until 1995, only invited guests could attend the ceremony. It was held in Munich, and in 2001, the venue was moved from Hamburg to Berlin because of subsidies of up to 20 million euros, although a return in 2004 was considered. In 2009, the venue in Berlin was moved to O2 World.
The trophy was designed by Oliver Renelt when he was a student at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg. It is stainless steel, and is 40 centimetres (16 in) tall and weighs 2 kilograms (4.4 lb). It depicts half a disc with notes flowing into it from a globe, and the design was the winner of a competition held for that purpose.
The Kastelruther Spatzen have won 13 Echo Awards in the category Volksmusik which is more than any other artist; the awards were in 1993, 1996–2003, 2006–2010.
Selected pop categories
Following its first edition as a separate event in Cologne in 1994, Echo Klassik has been held in the Semperoper in Dresden in 1996 and 2009, in Dortmund in 2003, in Gasteig in Munich from 2004 to 2008. In 2011 it was held in Essen.