The purpose of the article is to reveal the peculiarities of the creativity of folk-instrumental ensembles in the second half of the XX — the beginning of the XXI centuries in the cultural locus of Kharkiv.
 The relevance of the article is determined by the dissonance between the intensity of artistic practice, the variety of ways of testing innovations, the permanent reinvention of genre, style, timbre, expressive parameters of folk-instrumental ensembles in the cultural locus of Kharkiv, and the discreteness of researching their activities in the musicological discourse. Comparative methodology is based on the guidelines of system analysis, historical approach, musical interpretation method and generalization method.
 The results. The article outlines the conceptual, genre and stylistic, repertoire guidelines of such poly-timbral and mono-timbral folk-instrumental ensembles of Kharkiv of the second half of the XX–XXI centuries, such as “Korobeinyky”, “Rozmai”, “Yarmarok”, “Stozhary”, “TsymBanDo”, “3+2”, “Hrotesk”, “Grey Folk”, “Vesela Banda”, “Koloryt”, duets of accordionists I. Lypnytskyi and L. Hura, O. Mishchenko and I. Sniedkov, female bandurist trio “Kupava” and “Zoredana”, Kharkiv Guitar Quartet.
 The scientific novelty of the article lies in identifying such specific features of the creative activity of folk-instrumental ensembles of Kharkiv, such as: variability of forms and compositions; virtuosity; the trend to expand timbral, sonorous, textural horizons, reinventing the technical and performing arsenal; testing of new improved modifications of traditional instruments and timbre-textural versions of classical world and national heritage; expansion of genre and stylistic horizons with original works of modern Ukrainian, in particular, Kharkiv artists; preservation of authentic music-making guidelines, establishment of the significance of the folklore and repertoire dominant idea; the significance of the academicization trend and the establishment of new sound images of folk instruments; timbral experi-mentalism, acting theatricalization of performance, tending to the aesthetic dimensions of World music and crossover, that are consonant with multiculturalism and ironic metamodernism; combination of perfor-mance, composition, research, pedagogical and methodical activities of its representatives.
 Conclusions. The revealed peculiarities of the creative activity of folk-instrumental ensembles in the cultural space of Kharkiv testify to the establishment of the academic status of the national folk-instrumental ensemble art as a bearer of mentally marked traditional guidelines for instrumental music-making and a reflection of the multicultural essence of metamodernism, the sphere of transformation of aesthetic, genre and stylistic, timbre and technical and performative parameters of folk-instrumental ensemble art based on the diffusion of folklore, academic and variety music, a mediator between cultures in diachrony and synchrony, the bearer of the mission of raising folk-instrumental traditions and finding innovative ways of their embodiment.
 The practical significance of the article is outlined by the heuristic application of its results in pedagogical-methodical, theoretical-practical and performance activities.