Центр современной музыки Софии Губайдулиной

International Young Composers Festival by The Centre for Contemporary Music of Sofia Gubaidulina

When carrying out a consistent policy in the field of children's and the young art education, the country's state institutions are driven by the outlook on culture as a mean and a principal condition for unlimited and all-round development of an individual. Also it is seen as an issue of a national scope. It is notable that the year of 2018 was announced to be the Year of Music in Russia by the president, as well as grew the support of young composers of Russia. This fact enabled creative organizations cooperating with young composers to improve their activities.

The International Young Composers Festival is a new project by the Centre for Contemporary Music of Sofia Gubaidulina, which is supposed to be launched after Kazan is included in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. The project aims to provide young composers who make new contemporary academic music with a platform to perform their music together with Kazan orchestras. This new music forum will enable UNESCO creative network young composers to demonstrate their art and bring to life new ideas, as well as share experience and get to know the unique culture of Kazan. The main festival organizer will be the Centre for Contemporary Music of Sofia Gubaidullina.

The roadmap of the International Young Composers Festival in Kazan includes a number of independent projects, which were started in 2019 and will continue in 2020.

1. The regional musical-educational project ‘Creating the Harmony of the World’ organized by the Centre of S. Gubaidulina primarily aims to find talented children and teenagers in music composing. It also helps to make joint projects with further educational institutions in music and vocational educational institutions in the Republic of Tatarstan. The project includes lectures and concerts of the bands from the Centre, as well as meetings and workshops with professional young composers.

2. The International Youth Composers Seminar called ‘Composers’ Table Read’ is a series of lessons for young composers with experienced professional composers. During the lessons tutors give lectures and have individual meetings, whereas performers analyse music scripts in the presence of young composers to find out whether the composer managed to convey his or her idea, find the necessary instrumental techniques and to choose the relevant note symbols and signs.

3. The International Music Festival ‘MusTransit: East-West’
The festival presents an extensive program of music composition. The festival demonstrates the genre diversity of contemporary composers, multiculturalism and multidisciplinarity. Young musicians (composers, music groups and soloists) from Russia, Australia, South Korea, China, Israel, Lithuania, Switzerland, Macedonia, Germany and Finland are invited to take part in the festival. Among them: Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble (MCME), the Trio ‘Mecum Porto’ (Lithuania), ‘Vortex’ Ensemble (Switzerland), the Electro-acoustic duet (Germany) and others. Composers, orchestras, ensembles and performing soloists from Kazan and the Republic of Tatarstan will also take part in the festival. The festival will include concerts, a conference, master classes and meet the artist sessions with composers.

4. The International Open Competition of Young Composers named after Sofia Gubaidulina.
The competition is dedicated to the 90th birthday anniversary of the distinguished contemporary composer Sofia Gubaidulina. It aims to find talented young contemporary academic music composers. The founders of the competition are the Centre for Contemporary Music of Sofia Gubaidullina, Composers' Union of the Russian Federation and the Youth Branch of the Composers' Union of the Russian Federation with the support of the Ministry of Culture of Russia and Tatarstan and Composers' Union of the Republic of Tatarstan.
The competition starts in January 2020 and the results will be announced in the year of the 90th anniversary of S. A. Gubaidulina in 2021.