East Coast Music Award

The "East Coast Music Awards" is an annual awards ceremony based in Atlantic Canada for music appreciation on the East Coast of Canada. Since its beginning in 1989 when it was launched as the "Maritime Music Awards" by Halifax music industry promoter Rob Cohn, it has grown from the original five categories (Album of the Year, Female Artist of the Year, Male Artist of the Year, Song of the Year, and Video of the Year) to over 25 categories in music and over 10 in industry.

2006 Conference and Gala Awards Show

The 2006 ECMAs were hosted by the Trailer Park Boys (Julian, Ricky, and Bubbles) on February 27, 2006, at the Civic Centre in Charlottetown. The gala event was televised nationally and attended by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

2007 Conference and Gala Awards Show

ECMA 2007 was held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, during February 15-18, at various venues across the city. The gala awards show was held on February 18th at the Halifax Metro Centre, where the Trailer Park Boys returned to host the show for the second year in a row. Unfortunately, viewer-ship was down significantly from 2006, to approximately 360,000 viewers.

The ECMA 2007 was the most technologically advanced ECMA yet, with teams of official bloggers, audio podcasters, and video journalists scouring the conference and delivering rich media throughout the conference and posting it on [http://radio.upei.ca/ecma ECMA Interactive] , [http://www.cbc.ca CBC] and [http://www.ecmalive.com ECMA live] .The use of new media and Internet-based distribution methods is also the topic of one of the many workshops that are held as part of the 4-day conference.

Awards/Nominations

The Awards have been dominated by several groups/artists over the years. The top ten by wins and then nominations are as follows:

# Great Big Sea - 20 wins, 32 nominations
# Lennie Gallant - 15 wins, 37 nominations
# Natalie MacMaster - 15 wins, 35 nominations
# Gordie Sampson - 12 wins, 23 nominations
# The Rankin Family - 10 wins, 29 nominations
# Rita MacNeil - 10 wins, 26 nominations
# Bruce Guthro - 9 wins, 19 nominations
# J. P. Cormier - 9 wins, 19 nominations
# George Canyon - 8 wins, 15 nominations
# Crush - 7 wins, 12 nominations

External links

* [http://www.ecma.ca/ East Coast Music Awards Official Website]
* [http://radio.upei.ca/ecma ECMA Interactive] : Official online coverage of ECMA 2007
* [http://www.ecmalive.com ECMA Live] :Podcast coverage for the ECMA 2007