Candida Thompson talks about collaboration with Farokhzad Layegh

Candida Thompson on Farokhzad Layegh and the artistic dialogue behind The Waste Land

A musical encounter can begin quietly — with a sound, an idea, a conversation.

The meeting between Candida Thompson and Farokhzad Layegh developed into an extended creative dialogue, crossing boundaries between composition, poetry, performance and movement.

Layegh’s Lexolalia Descenticum became a point of departure: a musical world whose atmosphere and ideas helped inspire The Waste Land, the multidisciplinary collaboration between Amsterdam Sinfonietta and ISH Dance Collective. Within the production, his music became more than repertoire; it formed part of the work’s underlying dramatic language. sinfonietta.nl

Here, Thompson reflects on the encounter — and on the rare moment when one artist’s language enters another’s world and begins to transform it.

From conversation to collaboration.
From music to movement.
From a single idea to an entire world.