In October 2026 International new music festival and laboratory Synesthesia lab (Artistic Director – composer Roman Parkhomenko), will take place in Kazan, Russia.

The project, which will be held for the fourth time, will feature concerts featuring world premieres, multimedia special projects, lectures, and master classes from international and Russian composers, contemporary music experts.


Synesthesia Lab's mission is to enable composers from around the world to write new music while simultaneously participating in unique multi-genre collaborations.

In 2025, 230 applications were received from composers from 35 countries, 28 world premieres were performed, and four special projects were held.

This year, the selected composers will have the opportunity to create new works for ensembles such as the Orchestra of the Sofia Gubaidulina Center for Contemporary Music, the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble (MCME), sound artist and viola d'amore player Sergey Poltavsky, singer and viola da gamba player Alisa Ten, and multi-instrumentalist Rust Pozyumsky.


All new works will be performed in October at Kazan's main venues.

The festival program will feature the percussion ensemble Space of Rhythm, singer and founder of the vocal ensemble N'Caged Arina Zvereva, pianist and soloist of the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble Michael Dubov, accordionist Saidash Fakhraziev, the KV/EF (Vsevolod Krassa and Elizaveta Fomina), erhu player Zhu Jing (China), assistant principal conductor of the Ensemble Intercontemporain (France) and conductor of the Kolobov New Opera Theatre Lyubov Nosova, composer and conductor Roman Parkhomenko.

Special guests of the festival will be composers Vera Ivanova (Russia-USA), Deqin Wen (China-Switzerland), Do Hong Kuan (Vietnam), and Mehdi Hosseini (Iran-Russia).