The Centre for Contemporary Music (CCM) is the first institution in Russia created to support, promote and study contemporary academic music. The Centre collaborates with leading international ensembles and the most renowned composers of our time. Founded in 1993 at the Moscow Conservatory, it brought together musicians of every speciality — performers, composers and musicologists — whose creative interests lie in contemporary academic music.

The Centre’s main goal is to build in Russia the musical context needed for the development of the art that the international artistic community calls “contemporary”. Since 2001 the CCM has been a member of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM, www.iscm.org), maintaining close two-way ties with the musical capitals of the world.

In Russia the CCM presents panorama concerts of the “classics” of the musical avant-garde and introduces the most important works of the last decade — music at the very cutting edge of the present day. Many scores by young composers have been written specifically for the Centre’s projects. Thanks to the CCM, works by young Russian composers are performed at the most prestigious international forums of contemporary music, and their authors receive commissions for new pieces from organisations abroad.

Educational projects are a major field of the CCM’s activity: lectures and seminars on the history of contemporary music and the latest performance techniques; conferences and round tables on current issues of contemporary art; a library of contemporary scores unparalleled in Russia; and competitions for young composers. Special attention is paid to filling in the “blank spots” in the history of the early Russian avant-garde, since the music of the 1910s–20s is not something “old and well forgotten” but a phenomenon still waiting to be discovered, whose relevance in today’s world is beyond doubt.

The Centre’s unique role stems from its status as a research and creative division of the Moscow Conservatory. It is at once a state institution embedded in the system of academic music education and a mobile experimental platform for new, bold creative statements. Seeking to comprehend and understand the musical “today”, it is the first to set the agenda for the musical “tomorrow”.