Csound is a computer music language that has been continually evolving since its inception in 1986. During that time it has united people of all ages from around the world and from a wide range of disciplines: audio technology, media programming, contemporary, academic and avant-garde music, digital signal processing, telecommunications and electronic dance music. The Csound community presents a unique forum of users where programming and compositional issues are discussed in equal measure and with equal energy.

A special aspect of this conference was that it took place in St. Petersburg, Russia: a city of great culture, world-renowned museums and beautiful white nights, and the city where Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov and Dmitry Shostokovich wrote their most famous pieces. Without doubt, St. Petersburg merited hosting the 3rd International Csound Conference. Russia has great heritage in the world of electronic music, being the country from which the theremin and the ANS synthesizer originated, but in more recent times Russia has seen less innovation, so I am particularly proud to be able to contribute to remedying this by hosting this conference. I am sure that the conference will hold a unique place in the history of electronic music in Russia. It has been a pleasure to be able to establish a new Russian centre for Csound's world family.