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About us / News / 20. September 2019
The VUT Indie Award winners © VUT

Alice Merton and Philipp Thimm receive VUT Indie Award

20. September 2019

On Thursday, 19 September, the Association of Independent Music Companies (VUT) presented the Indie Awards 2019. The jury, consisting of around 250 members with experts from areas such as sales, booking and media, chose Alice Merton, a Pop Academy graduate, as the winner in the "Best Newcomer" category. She prevailed against the other nominees Gewalt Band, Neufundland, WARGIRL and Wolf & Moon. In the category "Best Act", the artist Apparat, in whose productions the pop academy graduate Philipp Thimm is involved as cellist, was awarded.

Alice Merton studied at the Popakademie for a bachelor's degree in pop music design with a focus on singing. Her breakthrough came with her hit "No Roots", which has since received two gold and seven platinum records worldwide. The artist continues to be accompanied by Popakademie musicians and is managed by Paul Grauwinkel, a graduate of the Bachelor of Arts degree Music Business. Her album "Mint", which she released in 2018 on her own label Paper Plane Records International, reached number two in the German album charts. Currently, the artist can be seen on Free TV as a jury member of the German edition of The Voice.

Philipp Thimm is a cellist, guitarist, producer and songwriter. In 2011, he completed his Bachelor of Pop Music Design with a focus on electric guitar. He is part of the Berlin band Abby and has worked as arranger and instrumentalist with Tim Bendzko, Kraftklub, Thees Uhlmann and David Lemaitre, among others. Since 2011, he has been involved as a studio and live musician as well as a production partner in the electronic and alternative project Apparat by Sascha Ring, who produced the title music for the German Netflix series Dark.

The VUT Indie Awards were presented for the seventh time. They are considered the critics' prize of the independent music industry in Germany and honour outstanding talents on the basis of quality and novelty. In addition to Alice Merton and Apparat, this year's winners included Bilderbuch (Best Album - "Mea Culpa"), Holly Herndon as well as Nik Nowak (Best Experiment), Greenland Records (Best Label) and composer Matthias Hornschuh (Special Prize for his commitment to cultural policy). The award ceremony took place at Schmidts Tivoli during the Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg.

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