Breaking: Germany replaces disgraced ECHO with new classical award

Breaking: Germany replaces disgraced ECHO with new classical award

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norman lebrecht

August 30, 2018

The ECHOs were scrapped for offensive Holocaust jibes.

Here’s the classical substitute, about to be announced:

The OPUS KLASSIK, a new award for classical music, will be awarded for the first time in Konzerthaus Berlin on Sunday, 14 October, 2018. After the Echo was ended this spring, exceptional achievements in the classical music genre will once again be recognized this year. The Opus is organized by the new association Verein zur Förderung der Klassischen
Musik e.V.will be broadcasted on ZDF on 14 October, 2018 at 10 PM The OPUS KLASSIK, a new award for classical music, will be awarded for the first time in Konzerthaus Berlin on Sunday, 14 October, 2018. After the Echo was ended this spring, exceptional achievements in the classical music genre will once again be recognized this year. The Opus is organized by the new association Verein zur Förderung der Klassischen Musik e.V. The awards ceremony will be broadcasted on 14 October at 10 PM by the media partner ZDF.

“Classical music in Germany should be acknowledged with its very own award,” said Burkhard Glashoff, chairman of the Verein zur Förderung der Klassischen Musik e.V. “We, the founding members, have made it our goal to recognize and award exceptional achievements in classical music. We have developed a concept for a new music award that is more broadly
positioned than in the past and reflects the branch in all its diversity.”
The founding members of the Verein zur Förderung der Klassischen Musik e.V. embody the basis of the award in the wide-ranging music business: CLASS – Association of Classical Independents in Germany e.V., Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft GmbH Konzertdirektion Dr. Rudolf Goette GmbH, Dagmar Sikorski (Sikorski Musikverlage), Sony Music Entertainment Germany GmbH, Benedikt Stampa (designated director of the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden) and Warner Music Group Germany Holding GmbH. The board consists of Burkhard Glashoff, Konzertdirektion Dr. Rudolf Goette GmbH, who serves as the chairman of the board, and Dr. Clemens Trautmann, Deutsche Grammophon.

The association was founded after the organizer of the Echo, the Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI), announced the termination of all Echo awards in the categories Pop, Classical and Jazz. In this transition year, the rules and jury for the new award will still be based on those of the Echo Klassik; however, the association will strive to continually refine the new prize for classical music on the basis of feedback from the music industry.

Comments

  • Caravaggio says:

    Guaranteed they will end up with a gaudy pop-rock style spectacle for the new awards. You just wait. But they might as well considering the abject vocalism nowadays. Funny, the use of the CLASS acronym. For, in addition to abject singing, class is precisely one more missing element in its practitioners. Sad. Anyhow, I have more faith in instrumentalists (than in singers) for these awards. We shall see.

  • Simon Abramov says:

    ECHO was distinguished principally by bad taste and mediocrity. For example this pianist who was not good enought even to get admitted to international piano competitions, but has a curvaceous figure and pouting lips and makes seductive wriggling movements with her hips during performance:

    http://www.olgascheps.de/

    Hardly likely that a new acronym will change any of this.

    • Andreas says:

      Indeed! How is someone who hasn’t won a major piano competition supposed to be any good? There should be a law banning anyone without a major award from recording CDs these days. “Slipped Disc” posted so many articles about piano competitions being the highest authority on objectivity about who deserves our attention.
      Thank you for pointing out the seductive wriggling movements of Mrs. Scheps´ hips during her performances, I haven´t noticed those, but maybe I simply lack your imagination.

    • Robert Groen says:

      I’m afraid you’re talking rubbish, Simon. There are plenty of gifted pianists who never entered a competition. Some by choice, others because they felt they wouldn’t be able to handle the stresses that go with them. Art is not a competitive sport. Nor do I feel that good looks necessarily stand in the way of a young woman’s artistic ability.

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