Asko|Schönberg brings together creators and performers from different disciplines, in an unexpected way. Words & Music is inspired by composer Luciano Berio (1926-2003) and literary enfant terrible of the sixties William S. Burroughs (1914-1997). Both applied the cut-up technique in their own way: they used fragments of existing and new material to create new work.

Words & Music program presents musical theatre, do-it-yourself cut-ups, brand new music, installations, film and more. The festival route runs through various areas of the Muziekgebouw. On display are, amongst others, performer Akim Moiseenkov and the performance Lunch Music, inspired by Burroughs’ book Naked Lunch. Composer Yannis Kyriakides creates a hallucinatory result with fragments from the book, live electronics, the virtuosity of Slagwerk Den Haag and the singers of Silbersee. In Berio’s Recital for Cathy, a singer slowly goes mad and Genevieve Murphy presents her show I Don’t Want To Be An Individual All On My Own