The Edison Award is an annual Dutch music prize awarded for outstanding achievements in the music industry. It is comparable to the American Grammy Award. The Edison award itself is a bronze replica of a statuette of Thomas Edison, designed by the Dutch sculptor Pieter d'Hont. It is one of the oldest music awards in the world, first presented in 1960 at the inaugural Grand Gala du Disque. Edisons In 1960, the Committee for Collective Gramophone Campaigns organized the Edison awards for recordings in various categories. The first Edisons – named after the inventor of the phonograph, Thomas Edison – were awarded at the inaugural Grand Gala du Disque, a showcase for the awards featuring national and international performers. Coincidentally, Edison was of Dutch lineage. Each year, Edisons were awarded at two separate events, the Grand Gala du Disque Classique for classical music and the Grand Gala du Disque Populaire for popular music. There were two main categories: International artists and domestic (Dutch) artists, in various musical styles such as pop, vocal, jazz, instrumental, children and (in the early years) a separate award for French-language music. The winners were decided by judges. The 1963 Grand Gala du Disque Populaire, which overran by almost two hours, saw Marlene Dietrich, Sarah Vaughan and Charles Aznavour accepting an Edison. In 1965, the winners included Esther Ofarim, Oliver Nelson, Louis van Dijke, the Beatles and Joan Baez. Pianist Vladimir Horowitz and composer-conductor Igor Stravinsky won awards at the Grand Gala du Disque Classique.The award itself has also gone through many changes. In the 1960s and early 1970s, it grew to a (then) record number of 24 categories in 1969. In later years, the number of awards was inconsistent and several categories did not last longer than a couple of years. From 1974 to 1976 no Edisons were awarded and in 1977 only Dutch artists were awarded a prize. In 1980, the Classical and Popular were jointly awarded. While the award lost much of its prestige in the 1980s due to lack of media coverage and interest from record companies – the number of categories continued to grow to a record number of 35 in 1991. The choices became more progressive, as several award winners were virtually unknown to the general public. In 1991, for instance, no awards were given to best-selling and critically lauded albums, but instead lesser known artists like The Riverdogs, Michael