Grand Music Award 2014 ceremony
The Grand Music Award (GMA) is the highest Latvian state award in music. This year is the 20th anniversary of the first time this award was presented. In 1993, the Ministry of Culture, following the initiative of Raimonds Pauls, then Minister of Culture, made a decision to fete the most outstanding annual achievements in the country’s music life with a special award. The tradition was started which has become a particularly expected event of the musicians themselves as well as of music-lovers. Since 1996, the GMA ceremony has taken place in the Latvian National Opera, and the audiences of the Latvian Radio and TV follow the procedure on live broadcast. The high prestige of GMA in society and in the music circles is ensured by the work of a respectable jury the participants of which attend concerts throughout the year and have monthly meetings. At the beginning of January, the jury propose the nominees for GMA of the previous year, who are announced during a special press conference of the Ministry of Culture, and only before the GMA ceremony the jury vote for the laureates.