Salisbury Arts Centre wants its audience to drift off during tonight's concert, curated by violinist Pekka Kuusisto. What music would you put on such a concert programme, and what have you inadvertently dozed off during?

There's been times in everyone's concert-going life when you might have struggled to stifle the yawns, and in a hot concert hall, and perhaps after an interval glass of wine, you find your head drooping. But tonight, 30 May, at Salisbury International Arts Festival, this is exactly what's supposed to happen as the festival stages the premiere of a new piece specifically created to put the audience to sleep.

The mad genius behind it is of course Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto, who, in collaboration with singer/composer Joanna Wallfisch and sound artist Teemu Korpipää has curated a concert that will consist of an hour of music, song, words and story, all designed to send the audience to sleep.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Such stuff as dreams are made on... violinist Pekka Kuusisto

Salisbury Arts Centre will be decked out with cushions and rugs in the auditorium instead of seating, and audience members can bring their own pillows and duvets.

“The more people who fall asleep by the end, the more successful the performance will have been," says Festival Director Toby Smith. "Pekka is an incredible musician, who is always looking for different ways of looking at things, and this audience will be given a unique artistic experience that they’ll never forget… until they hopefully fall asleep.”

The concert will feature jazz standards, poetry by Edgar Allen Poe, Shakespeare, a Finnish lullaby and draw on music by Brahms, Schubert and the Beach Boys among others.

What have you fallen asleep to? It's not always lullabies and soothing jazz standards in my case. I've several times had people dozing near me at the opera - at a cinema screening of Götterdämmerung someone's snoring got so loud that I began to agonise over the etiquette of prodding them, while after a busy day and not enough sleep the previous night I confess I even managed to drift off to the far from soothing sounds of Birtwistle's Gawain recently (the fault was all mine, nothing about the thrilling performances). And then there's the perils of the sauna that the Royal Albert Hall becomes on summer nights. Lucky that every orchestra keeps us on the edge of our seats during the Proms season.

