With the support of My Step Foundation, the Urvakan International Contemporary Music festival was hosted in Yerevan earlier this year in May. This was the first time Armenia has hosted the event, and it presented an opportunity for Armenia to be introduced as a captivating location for tourists to flock to in addition to creating a unique environment to showcase innovative music.

Urvakan International Contemporary Music Festival was the first time Armenia has hosted a festival that presents contemporary music, art, and development featuring 80 artists from 22 different countries performing contemporary electronic, instrumental, and club music trends. Many fans from all over the world visited Armenia to attend the festival. The purpose of the festival was to create a new experience in Soviet and former Soviet abandoned “urvakan” territories in Armenia by introducing musicians, painters, and other creative artists from around the world and having them perform in old factories and abandoned houses to bring a new life and culture to them.

Urvakan Festival is succeeded by the Synthposium International Music Festival, which will present innovative music from all over the world. It has been held in various locations throughout Moscow, Russia for the past 6 years and has become a symbolic event for creative music fans and industry professionals. This year, Synthposium will make its first debut in Yerevan on October 4th and 5th, hosting over 50 musicians, engineers, and artists from over 16 countries. It will feature new music technologies, lectures and seminars, concerts, and digital art exhibitions.

The aim of the festival is to enable the local art community to inspire musical innovation and support creators of modern music and technology. Its performers will be coming from all over the world, including Switzerland, France, Canada, Germany, USA, Austria, the Netherlands, Japan, Iran, Lebanon, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia and Armenia. Among them are Swiss composer Thomas Fehlmann, French-German “dOP house” project leader Damien Vandesande, and Canadian musician Jesse Osborne-Lanthier as well as the founders of German “dadamachines” and Russian “Playtronica” companies.

Fans will be able to spend all day and night at the festival watching exhibitions of innovative music technologies and digital art, attending hand-on trainings and lectures and enjoying a variety of live performances and DJ sets. In addition, special projects will be introduced at the festival including a collaboration between SARI and UNDP projects to initiate educational events involving youth from rural communities.

On October 3rd, a workshop is taking place with the youth of Sarigyugh and Jesse Osborne-Lantier to introduce new experimental music. The group will then join the festival in Yerevan. A workshop led by Anton Yakhontov from Modern Media Lab at the Alexandrinsky Theater in Russia will be held from October 1-3 at the Komitas State Conservatory and open for Conservatory students to attend. With the support of the Goethe Center, Synthposium will be presenting an “Icebreaker Music” concert which will be taking place on October 4th at 9:00pm at the Union of Composers Concert Hall. “Icebreaker music” is inspired mainly by the sounds and images of melting ice in Central Asia. The project juxtaposes art and science, as it creates a connection between the two fields and brings attention to the extent of humanity’s damage to nature.

The “Icebreaker Music” concert was co-created by artists Robert Lipok from Berlin, Anushka Tkheidze from Georgia, Etc Gelashvili from Georgia, and Hayk Karo Karapetyn from Armenia. It began in 2011 in Almaty and Tashkent by the initiative of the Goethe Institute. Additionally, the Synthposium festival will feature special combination programs including the Mayan festival and the PROUN International Movements, both of which had garnered a lot of attention back in May.

“After 6 years, we can say with confidence that the Synthposium has had a fundamental impact on the development of innovative and experimental music Russia. It has become a wonderful source of self expression and presented the opportunity for many new artists interested in this genre of music and art to be able to exchange and experience art. The festival itself has become an established platform for meetings of the International music community. We truly believe that Synthposium Festival will become a unique regional platform for the professional music community in Armenia and festival fans will have the exceptional opportunity to be a part of this new, exciting experience,” says Synthposium co-founder Nairi Simonyan during an interview. He also noted that he has hope that the festival will continue to be held every year and put Armenia on the map so that it becomes known as the center where creative artists and leading minds from the world of art and technology can gather at least once a year.

Partners of the Synthposium Festival include My Step Foundation, the Canadian Embassy in Russia, the Pro-Helvetia Cultural Council of Switzerland, UNDP Armenia, the Goethe Institute in Yerevan, the French Embassy in Armenia, the PROUN movement, and the Urvakan Festival. The full list of festival participants can be found on synthposium.com.