Asko|Schönberg
 
Since 2008, the Asko Ensemble and Schönberg Ensemble have been united in Asko|Schönberg: not an ensemble, not an orchestra, but a flexible group of musicians who can appear in formations of any needed size to perform twentieth- and twenty-first-century music. The music of great, established composers such as György Ligeti, György Kurtág, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mauricio Kagel, Louis Andriessen who have secured their place in music history. But also the music of a younger generation, composers such as Michel van der Aa, Martijn Padding and Julian Anderson, and even the youngest generation, whose compositions are still wet from the ink.
Asko|Schönberg has presented all of this in its own Contemporaries series in the Concertgebouw and Donderdagavonderie -PROMS - at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ - as a guest of the renowned Saturday Matinee concert series, in the Holland Festival and with the Netherlands Opera. 
Neither are the youngest audiences neglected: Asko|Schönberg is involved in educational projects for 7-year-olds, composition projects for secondary school students in the graduating class, and collaboration with composition departments of conservatories. Asko|Schönberg recently began the György Ligeti Academy, an initiative for advanced conservatory students who want to gain expertise in the contemporary repertoire. All of this is being done by this dedicated group of versatile musicians, conductor Reinbert de Leeuw and guest conductors and soloists from the Netherlands and abroad.