The experimental scene in China reaches another milestone as the Tomorrow Festival Shenzhen celebrates its 10th anniversary from May 22 to 24, 2026, at B10 Live, with parallel activities at the OCT-LOFT North District. More than just a concert series, the festival positions itself as a space for reflection, exchange and risk-taking, where sound, time and perception are constantly reimagined.
Curated by Tu Fei and Teng Fei, this edition deepens its commitment to connecting avant-garde music, free improvisation and interdisciplinary practices, bringing together artists who blur the lines between composition and spontaneity, tradition and experimentation. The curatorial concept — inspired by the idea that “Tomorrow is Today” — emphasizes immediacy, presence and the act of listening as a transformative experience.
A global lineup of experimental voices:
Across three days, the festival presents seven concerts, a talk and a film screening, featuring artists from China, the United States, Canada, Türkiye and France. The program moves fluidly between solo performances, collaborative projects and hybrid formats that incorporate electronics, acoustic instruments and visual elements.
May 22 – Opening night
Ava Mendoza – Migrator
Sarah Davachi – Music for a Bellowing Room (Excerpt)
The opening night sets the tone with two distinct yet complementary approaches: Mendoza’s visceral guitar and voice work, rooted in the intersections of jazz, rock and free improvisation, and Davachi’s slow-moving, deeply textural compositions, where analog electronics and extended durations reshape the listener’s perception of time and space.
May 23 – Improvisation and legacy
Talk: Steve Shelley presents Put Blood in the Music + Sonic Youth’s New York City (free entry)
Kudsi Erguner Duo – Yol
The Flying Luttenbachers – Negative Infinity
The second day explores lineage and transformation. Steve Shelley offers a rare insider perspective on the explosive creativity of the 1980s New York scene, while Kudsi Erguner bridges centuries of musical tradition through the ney, reconnecting with Ottoman and Middle Eastern sonic heritage. Closing the night, The Flying Luttenbachers deliver their signature high-intensity blend of no wave, free jazz, metal and noise — a chaotic yet precise dismantling of musical structures.
May 24 – Tradition meets experimentation
Screening: The Desert Rocker by Sara Nacer (free entry)
Mamer – Free Symphonic Project for Dombra (world premiere)
Orcutt Shelley Miller – The Original Vagabonds
Tomorrow Improvisation Unit
The final day focuses on cross-cultural dialogue and reinvention. The screening of The Desert Rocker highlights the story of Hasna El Becharia, a pioneering figure who challenged gender norms within Gnawa music. Mamer’s world premiere brings the Kazakh dombra into an experimental, symphonic and electronic context, while Orcutt Shelley Miller channel raw, high-energy improvisation rooted in free jazz and underground rock traditions. The Tomorrow Improvisation Unit closes the festival with an open-ended, collective exploration of sound.
Beyond concerts: talk & cinema:
Beyond live music, the festival expands into discourse and cinema, offering free-access events that deepen the audience’s engagement. From Shelley’s contextualization of Sonic Youth’s artistic environment to the intimate, multi-year portrait presented in The Desert Rocker, these activities reinforce the festival’s commitment to thinking about music as culture, history and lived experience.
A decade of pushing boundaries:
Over the past ten years, Tomorrow Festival has grown into one of Shenzhen’s key platforms for experimental and avant-garde music, consistently championing artists who operate outside mainstream circuits. Its intimate scale allows for close interaction between performers and audience, fostering a sense of shared discovery.
For its 10th edition, the festival fully embraces its identity:
- raw improvisation
- cross-cultural experimentation
- sound as a living, evolving process
Or, as the curatorial spirit suggests: “Tomorrow is today. Now is the moment to listen.”
The 10th Tomorrow Festival brings together experimental music pioneers from five countries across three days in Shenzhen.