Kazan will host the New Wave Festival for the second time

Kazan will host the New Wave International Competition for Young Performers for the second time, the program of which will include the Raymond Pauls anniversary concert in 2026. This was announced by Ilsur Metshin, the mayor of the city, during a staff meeting on Monday, April 13.

"The country's leadership, with the support of the RAIS of Tatarstan, decided to hold the New Wave festival in Kazan. This is an event that we fought for, and for the second year in a row, our city will be trusted to become the musical capital of our vast Homeland for a few days and host a global event for our pop scene," said the Mayor of Kazan.

One of the days of the festival will be dedicated to a joint project of Kazakh singer Dimash Kudaibergen and Russian composer Igor Krutoy. The audience will also be presented with a program dedicated to the 90th anniversary of People's Artist of the USSR Raymond Pauls.

"He is a long-time partner of Igor Yakovlevich, his music sounds in the hearts of people of different generations — from grandparents to young people. The contestants will definitely introduce the audience to this wonderful creative legacy. Igor Yakovlevich will present a detailed program later," Ilsur Metshin added.

The city authorities emphasize the high effectiveness of the event for the development of the tourism industry. Last year, the contest's TV audience reached 17.5 million people, and the number of mentions of the event in the media and social networks exceeded 1.5 thousand. Ilsur Metshin clarified that the federal coverage of the project makes a significant contribution to the image of Kazan and helps in achieving the goal of attracting 7 million tourists per year.

Kazan hosted the New Wave for the first time in the summer of 2025. From August 22 to 24, 13 finalists from six countries competed for the victory at the specially erected New Wave Hall. The winner of the competition was Alexander Lim. In total, more than 6 thousand applications were submitted for participation in the festival.

For the events, a 19-meter-high collapsible hall, previously used on the federal territory of Sirius, was delivered to Kazan on 60 trucks. The venue, designed in the style of an Alpine chalet, accommodates 2.8 thousand spectators.

The New Wave music Competition has been held since 2002. Until 2014, the event was held annually in Jurmala (Latvia), after which Sochi and Sirius became the venues of the festival in different years. The initiative to move the competition to the capital of Tatarstan was first announced at a meeting of the Kazan City Duma back in 2014.