Ostrava Days "give composers, musicians and musicologists an opportunity to work with leading representatives of contemporary music".
Festival programs have included major works by composers such as: Morton Feldman, John Cage, Luigi Nono, Iannis Xenakis, Karlheinz Stockhausen, György Ligeti, Edgard Varese, Galina Ustvolskaya, Christian Wolff,[6] Alvin Lucier, Petr Kotík, Martin Smolka, Phill Niblock, Elliott Sharp, Bernhard Lang, Rebecca Saunders, Philip Glass,[7] Kaija Saariaho.
Over the course of these two weeks the participating composers, musicians and musicologists interact with each other by means of attending a number of lectures, seminars, and presentations.
The festival offers a large number of concerts which program selected compositions by resident students, lecturers, guests, and others.
Students are chosen based on evaluation of no more than three scores and audio samples submitted to the assembly of lectors for each given year.