The ceremony for the World Peace Award of the World Choir Games was held on 28 December 2006 in the Stuttgart concert hall, the Liederhalle. During a concert for World Peace by the Fischer Choirs, the former German President, Walter Scheel, presented the World Peace Award to the man known in Germany as the "Choir King", Gotthilf Fischer.

The World Peace Award of the World Choir Games was awarded for the first time in December 2006. The Committee of the World Choir Games, made up of recognised experts in choral music from all the continents of the world, nominated the choir director Gotthilf Fischer for the first World Peace Award. During a special award ceremony, the prize was presented by the former President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Dr. h.c. Walter Scheel, alongside Günter Titsch.

In his decades of service to music, Gotthilf Fischer has been working with his "Fischer Choirs" on the "Road to Peace", bringing people from around the world together with television and radio programmes and concerts. Gotthilf Fischer has been an Ambassador of the World Choir Games since the year 2000. In December 2006 he was honoured with the World Peace Award.

The Committee of the World Choir Games would like to make the following statement on why it chose Mr. Gotthilf Fischer for the award:

Transcending barriers and frontiers is an especially important aspect of promoting peace. This applies to neighbours, societies, states, religions and languages. Mankind has invented many ways to mark borders: barriers, fences, walls, minefields and rules and regulations. The Great Wall of China, the Germanic-Rhaetian boundary wall (Limes), the Atlantikwall fortifications and the Iron Curtain all served much the same purpose – protecting powerful people and their interests or separating people and ideas from one another. None of them withstood the changes wrought by time. Down through the ages, where there were borders, there were people willing to cross them. People who scaled and tore down walls with their words and their deeds, thus transcending frontiers. People whose actions meant that cross-border exchanges between people of different ethnicity, skin colour, language, religion and lifestyle remained vibrant, that people were able to meet each other and thus enrich each others' lives. For decades now Gotthilf Fischer has been a person who has transcended borders and brought people together with and through his music. He has built intellectual and spiritual bridges, providing new stimuli to the cross-border exchanges between cultures, peoples and religions. His musical work reflects the concept of tolerance and respect for others while providing an impressive medium with which to promote and secure peace in this world. Because of his world-wide efforts, he was appointed Ambassador of the World Choir Games in 2000. Gotthilf Fischer's exemplary involvement represents a major contribution to peace in the world. The following is a selection of his achievements along the "Road to Peace":

• The concert performed by the Fischer Choirs during the Opening Ceremony for the 1974 Football World Cup Finals in Munich.
• His concerts on St. Peter's Square in Rome to mark three papal audiences in the Vatican in 1976, 1980 and 1982.
• His composition "Mass for World Peace", which he presented to the then President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, in 1978.
• His contribution to international understanding and reconciliation through his concert tours in Egypt, Israel, Hungary and many other countries.
• His energetic efforts on behalf of the World Choir Games in Linz, Austria (2000), Busan, South Korea (2002), Bremen, Germany (2004) and Xiamen, China (2006).

In awarding him the World Peace Award 2006, the Committee of the World Choir Games wishes Mr. Gotthilf Fischer lasting health, strength and energy so that he may continue to act as a model for cultural, political and religious leaders in promoting peace around the world.