A new online festival will connect young musicians across the Asia-Pacific with some of the world’s leading contemporary music creators.

The Asia-Pacific Young Composers Collective (APYCC) has announced the inaugural APYCC Composers Festival 2026, a free week-long online event running from 26 July 26 to 1 August.

Designed for composers aged 24 and under, the festival will feature live talks and Q&A sessions with internationally acclaimed composers, giving participants rare opportunities to engage directly with artists whose work is often difficult for students to access.

The festival features live talks and Q&As with internationally established composers whose work is typically difficult for students to access directly, including David Serkin Ludwig (Juilliard Dean of Music; Guggenheim Fellow), Andy Akiho (Pulitzer Prize finalist; GRAMMY nominee), Nina Shekhar (award-winning US orchestral composer), Dai Fujikura (internationally performed composer and festival artistic director), Emily Koh (Singaporean composer based in the US; University of Georgia faculty), Eunike Tanzil (a composer working across concert music, film, and TV including Netflix and DreamWorks), Kian Ravaei (Juilliard doctoral fellow with performances at Carnegie Hall and Concertgebouw) and Harvard Professor and experimental composer Chaya Czernowin.

APYCC founder Anvay Mathur said the festival was created both to support emerging composers and to introduce composition...