The New Voices section was once conceived as a tribute to youth, where nothing is yet settled and everything yearns to be reimagined. Each year, its curator set out in search of dazzling aesthetic novelty, only to encounter a dense wall of familiar variations.

Over time, that old, naïve plan faded into irrelevance. Now, musicality is the guiding principle—the programme as a complex chord. No longer chasing juvenile energy, it seeks its own subtle harmony.

Mikhail Ratgauz