Lukas Ligeti

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Profile Detailed Biography Lukas Ligeti's music is a unique fusion of acoustic and electronic, traditional and avantgarde, Occidental, African, and other influences. With his uncompromising musical vision and his collaborations ranging from contemporary music groups to free-improvisors to traditional musicians, he has established himself as one of today's foremost musical innovators. Lukas Ligeti was born in Vienna, Austria, to Hungarian parents. He studied composition (with Erich Urbanner) and jazz drums (with Fritz Ozmec) at the Vienna Music Academy (University for Music and the Performing Arts), obtaining a Diploma in composition and a Certificate in jazz drums (1993). He also holds a Master of Arts degree from the Vienna Music Academy (thesis on "World Music and Improvised Music", 1997), and took part in workshops led by John Zorn, George Crumb, and David Moss, and in the Darmstadt Ferienkurse. From 1994 until 1996, he lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he was a visiting composer at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University. In 1998, he settled in New York City. Though he only started playing music after having graduated from high school, Lukas quickly began developing his own voice. In the early days of his composition studies, he began working on a motion-based technique for playing polymetric patterns on the drums, along with a tabulature notation, and his compositions employ unusual concepts of polytempo interplay, with musicians sometimes being conducted by a computer relaying metronomic and other information to the players. Ethno-musicological recordings and analyses, especially of African music, were a great influence on him from the beginning on; other areas of interest include experimental mathematics, architecture and visual art, geography and traveling, as well as sociology and politics. Musically, he is interested in creating new forms of ensemble interplay, non-tempered tunings, and the possibilities generated by electronics and by cultural exchange. He is equally engaged in composition and in improvisation and is fond of many kinds of combination of these two extremes. An interest in jazz led him to the "downtown" New York avant-garde, and on the whole, in his attitude and development as a composer, he probably has more in common with the so-called American "mavericks" (including composers like Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, Harry Partch, Conlon Nancarrow, the so-called "minimalists", John Zorn, and others) than with any European contemporary tradition. He has received numerous awards and grants, such as a Composition Prize of the City of Vienna (1990), Austrian State Grants for Composition (1991 and 1996), a Composition Fellowship of the Santa Clara County Arts Council/Villa Montalvo composer residency (1995/97), a New York Foundation for the Arts Composition Fellowship (2002), Mary Flagler Cary Trust commission (2002), etc. Lukas has received composition commissions from many ensembles and institutions, for example the Vienna Konzerthaus, Vienna Festwochen, Ensemble Modern (Germany), Kronos Quartet (USA), Austrian Broadcasting Corporation/Ensemble die reihe, Radio France, New York University, Vienna Saxophone Quartet, Icebreaker (London), the Festival of New American Music (Sacramento), and Starkland Records (USA, for the first audio-DVD consisting entirely of commissioned contemporary music works), etc. His music has also been performed by the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon, London Sinfonietta, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, London Composers' Ensemble, Amadinda Percussion Ensemble (Budapest), Synergy Percussion (Sydney), So Percussion Group (USA), Kathleen Supové, Volker Altman, Donna Ellen, HK Gruber, Peter Keuschnig, Peter Rundel, and many others. "Mystery System", a CD of Lukas' chamber music, was released in 2004 on the Tzadik label and has been hailed as "The future of music", "irresistible", and "a knockout" - please consult the Press Clips page for an overview. Festivals at which his music has been heard include Hörgänge and Wien Modern (Vienna), Steirischer Herbst (Graz), Phonotaktik (Vienna), Bang on a Can (New York), Festival d'Automne à Paris, Bath Festival (England), Greenwich/Docklands Festival, Meltdown (London), 38èmes Rugissants (Grenoble, France), Budapest Weeks of Contemporary Music, Bartók Festival (Szombathely, Hungary), Time of Music (Viitasaari, Finland), Kilkenny Arts Week (Ireland), Gaida Festival (Lithuania), Musica e Scienzia (Rome), Taipei International Percussion Festival, Other Minds (San Francisco), Disklavier Festival (Knitting Factory, New York), the Zimbabwe International Book Fair (Harare), and many others in virtually every European country, the USA, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, and Australia. Highly active as a drummer playing improvised music, he has long-standing relationships with, or often performs or collaborates in groups with, among others, Raoul Björkenheim, Wende K. Blass, Paul Brantley, Daniel Carter, Ty Cumbie, Pyrolator Kurt Dahlke, Benoît Delbecq, Jed Distler, Fish Love That (Rob Henke, Todd Reynolds, Neil Rolnick, Steve Rust, Andrew Sterman), Gianni Gebbia, Greg Goodman, Rupert Huber (Tosca), James Ilgenfritz, Henry Kaiser, Aly Keïta, Ha-Yang Kim, Adam Lane, Maï Lingani, Michael Manring, Eyal Maoz, Stefan Poetzsch, Kelly Pratt, Massimo Pupillo (Zu), Ned Rothenberg, Elliott Sharp, etc. He has also worked with, among others, Intesar Abdel-Fattah and Al-Tubul, Steve Adams (ROVA), Paolo Angeli, Richard Barnert, Gregg Bendian, John Berndt, Bob Bralove and Tom Constanten (ex-Grateful Dead), Vincent Chancey, Nels Cline, Anthony Coleman, Mike Cooper, Marilyn Crispell, Chris Cutler, Danielle DeGruttola, Abdoulaye Diabaté, Robert Dick, Jorrit Dijkstra, Famoro Dioubaté, Katie Down, Mark Dresser, Jesse Dulman, Bruce Eisenbeil, Ensemble Modern, Helena Espvall-Santoleri, Pete Fand, Avram Fefer, Michael Fischer, Fred Frith, Vyacheslav Gaivoronsky, Paul Geluso, François Grillot, Sigi Hajszan, Jerome Harris, Gary Hassay, Franz Hautzinger, François Houle, Bob Hovey, Catherine Jauniaux, Victoria Jordanova, Mike Keneally, Khan (Can Oral), Mari Kimura, Roger Kleier, Babani Koné, Madou Koné, Fousseyni Kouyaté, Cornelius Claudio and Johannes Tonio Kreusch, Kamil Kruta, Keenan Lawler, Sylvain Leroux, George Lewis, Alan Licht, Gary Lucas, Luca T. Mai, Miya Masaoka, Sam Mataure, Yasser Moawad, Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Wilber Morris, Manuel Mota, Chris Muir, Tisziji Muñoz, Yves Musard, Shoko Nagai, Dafna Naphtali, Roy Nathanson (Jazz Passengers), Jim O'Rourke, Ilana Ospina, John Oswald, Paloma, Zeena Parkins, Paul Plimley, Werner Puntigam, Reuben Radding, Reut Regev, Ted Reichman, Tom Ritchford, Eddy Rollin, Raul Rothblatt, David Rothenberg, Chris Salter, Ursel Schlicht, John Schott, Dan Seamans, Tom Shad, Hossam Shaker, DJ Silver, Simonga, Blaise Siwula, Damon Smith, Wadada Leo Smith, Warren Smith, Sergey Starostin, Skye Steele, Benno Sterzer, Steve Swell, Abou Sylla, Hans Tammen, John Tchicai, Oluyemi Thomas, Danny Tunick, Uchihashi Kazuhisa, Jack Vees, Vladimir Volkov, Jason Willett, William Winant, Jack Wright, Pamela Z, and Zè Maria. Since 2003, he curates the weekly experimental / improvised music series Freezone (http://www.freezoneny.org) in New York City together with guitarist Ty Cumbie. He was a co-founder of the composition-improvisation group Things of NowNow (Vienna, 1988-91), with whom he performed, in conjunction with lectures by Heinz-Otto Peitgen and Richard Voss (pioneers of fractal computer graphics), at universities in Germany in the only concerts ever organized by Spektrum der Wissenschaft (the German edition of Scientific American). He was also a member of the avant-garde-heavy-metal-multimedia group Kombinat M (1990-92) and of numerous other bands playing rock, jazz or improvised music. He frequently performs solo on electronic percussion, playing a repertoire of his music combining composed and improvised elements and works frequently with other media, for example with silent film (Anthology Film Archives, NYC), creating a sound environment for an exhibition of paintings by Egon Schiele (Austrian Embassy, Washington, D.C.), and music for a site-specific dance performance of the Susan Quinn Dance Company (at an office building in Salzburg, Austria, as part of the festival Sommer-Szene Salzburg). Since 1994, Lukas has placed a special emphasis on the field of cultural exchange, working regularly with musicians from African-based traditions. His first trip to Africa was a result of an initiative by the Goethe Institute, Germany's cultural centers abroad, which commissioned him to conduct a workshop with traditional musicians in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. This led to founding the group Beta Foly and several more residencies in Abidjan. Beta Foly, which is likely Africa's only music ensemble combining traditional instruments with experimental electronic ones, debuted in Europe at the Wien Modern Festival (Mozartsaal, Vienna Konzerthaus) in 1996 and has since visited Europe three more times, performing at the opening festival of the Goethe Institute's new concert hall in Munich, the Innsbruck Easter Festival, World Music Meeting (Nijmegen, Netherlands), Wereldculturencentrum (Antwerpen, Belgium), Jahrhundertmusik (Munich), Musée de l'Art Moderne et Contemporain (Strasbourg, France), and many other venues. The first CD of Lukas Ligeti & Beta Foly was released in 1997 on Intuition Records. He also participated in a project involving Simonga, a group performing "Ngoma Buntibe", a traditional music of the Valley Tonga people of the Lake Kariba area in Zimbabwe, organized by Austrian and Zimbabwean arts organizations ARGE Zimbabwe and Kunzwana Trust; this included a tour of solo concerts in Zimbabwe in 1997 and performances in South Africa and Mozambique. In 1999, again commissioned by the Goethe Institute, he traveled to Cairo, Egypt, to collaborate with a diverse array of artists ranging from orchestral percussionists to Nubian traditional musicians. The results of this collaboration were presented in a concert at the Cairo Opera House. In 2000, he received a major commission from the American Composers' Forum's Continental Harmony Project, a celebration of the year 2000 in collaboration with the White House Millennium Council, the Miami Subtropics Festival, and the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, to create music for an ensemble of musicians from different parts of the Caribbean. The piece was premiered in April 2000 in Miami Beach. Also in 2000, he began a collaboration with Maï Lingani, a member of Beta Foly who is one of the most popular singers in Burkina Faso. He produced her debut album, "Entrons dans la danse", a creative mix of traditional forms, pop music, and avant-garde, which was released in Burkina Faso in 2000, and has performed frequently with her in Burkina Faso's capital city, Ouagadougou. They have also played as a duo or with a band in the U.S. at venues such as the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, P.S. 1 Museum in New York, the U.N. Headquarters, Stanford and Sacramento State Universities, etc. In 2002, they played a concert via a telephone line as part of the Ars Electronica festival, with Maï in Burkina Faso and Lukas in Austria; this was broadcast live on the radio in both countries. Recently, they toured in Austria with their new project, "Burkina Electric". Lukas has given lectures, seminars, and presentations at various schools and conferences, including Stanford University, the Vienna, Salzburg, and Munich Music Academies, the Juilliard School of Music, California State Universities at San Jose and Sacramento, University of Maryland, Institut National Supérieur des Arts et de l'Action Culturelle (Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire), Zimbabwe College of Music, "Colloque Musicologique des Afromusiques" (Grand Bassam, Côte d'Ivoire), "Challenges of Cultural Exchange" (Bilene, Mozambique), "Offene Regionen" (International Society for Contemporary Music, Vienna), and the College Art Association Conference (Toronto). An article he wrote on the technological aspects of his work in Beta Foly is published in the 2000 issue of the Leonardo Music Journal (MIT Press); another article was recently published in "The World of Music" (University of Bayreuth, Germany).