After the successful first edition in 2020, Asko|Schönberg presents on 3 September Words & Music, a festival full of cut-ups & f*ck-ups. In unexpected ways, various art disciplines come together in an adventurous programme that plays with the relationships between music and language.
Words & Music is this time 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 unique way: they used fragments of existing and new material to create new work. Result: a fantastic, stark, absurdist and disruptive programme of concerts - including two world premieres -, musical theatre, installations, film and more.
Programme
The festival takes place in various spaces of the Muziekgebouw. Shows include:
> Luciano Berio's Recital (for Cathy), directed by Romain Bischoff (Silbersee), has become a musical theatre performance in which the performance of the slowly delusional singer mixes with film projection and real-time film footage of what is happening backstage and on stage. What is really happening and what is going on in the mind of the singer who is losing her grip on reality....
> The show Lunch Music, inspired by the book Naked Lunch by Burroughs. 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.
> Genevieve Murphy presents her show with band I Don't Want To Be An Individual All On My Own; A sonic tale of pop, spoken word and sound sculptures. About the search for real connection in an individualised world.
> The premiere of Lise Morrisons Dream Start is a musical and visual translation of the poetry of PC Hooft Prize winner Alfred Schaffer.
> Also brand new is Vou atirar uma bomba ao destino by Jan van de Putte, named after a one-line poem by the Portuguese Pessoa. Freely translated: I'm going to drop another bomb on fate. A dramatic climax is therefore bound to happen.
> Performer and inventor Akim Moiseenkov takes an absurdist approach to Burroughs' material.
> New music by Luke Deane and Pete Harden in two music films.
Expect during Words & Music experimentation, (un)sense and sheer beauty.
M.m.v. makers and performers Asko|Schönberg, Slagwerk Den Haag, Silbersee, Genevieve Murphy, Eléonore Lemaire, Yannis Kyriakides, Akim Moiseenkov, Jan van de Putte, Luciano Berio, Lise Morrison, Pete Harden, Luke Deane, Arnold Marinissen, Esther Wu.
Practical information
Words & Music
Za 3 Sept, 15.30 - approx 23.30
Amsterdam, Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ
Day ticket: € 31.00 - 39.00
Words & Music Comes about with support from:
Performing Arts Fund, Dioraphte, Reinbert de Leeuw Fund, Contemporary Music Fund, Fund 21, Société Gavignies, Mauricio Kagel Music Fund, Ministry of OCW and Municipality of Amsterdam.