The Brno International Music Festival was started in 1966, at a time when Brno artistic institutions were coming out of heavy isolation and regaining their international bearings: Brno and its music were again open to the outside world. It was originally a several-day-long late summer/early autumn series of symphonic and chamber concerts, solo recitals and opera performances. Over the years it has grown to three weeks long, with at least one event every day. Each year it chooses a different, single theme in order to avoid muddled content resulting from a misplaced desire to accommodate guest stars who recycle the same repertoire from festival to festival.

One element helping to concentrate the theme is the INTERNATIONAL MUSICOLOGY COLLOQUIM, which adds an academic element to a festival attended by Czech and foreign experts in the field. In 1996 the INTERNATIONAL INTERPRETATION COMPETITION became a permanent part of the festival. It features, in rotation from year to year, one of five instruments or instrumental groups (French horn, organ, contrabass, percussion, and tuba), and is followed by a concert of the competition's laureates.

The original main festival is now the MORAVIAN AUTUMN, and has produced other "spinoff" festivals. Each year since 1992, in the two weeks leading up to the Easter holiday, the EASTER FESTIVAL OF SACRED MUSIC is held, consisting of six concert evenings, usually of a cantata or oratorio nature, are held in the churches of Brno, in recent years mostly at the hilltop cathedral of St. Peter and Paul.

A third branch of the festival is the movable (both in terms of date and place) EXPOSITION OF NEW MUSIC, which attempts to present contemporary non-traditional, often experimental works. Each year its five evening concerts share a specific theme that links the widely varying performances of the interpreters, who are often among the international leaders in their fields.

The Brno International Music Festival is produced by the city of Brno; the festival's organizer is the concert agency ARS/KONCERT, spol. s r.o.