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Profile Lukas Ligeti is a composer and percussionist living in New York. Recent News Lukas Ligeti's recent CDs include "Mystery System", a program of chamber music on Tzadik Records, and "The Williamsburg Sonatas", improvisations with Italian musicians Gianni Gebbia and Massimo Pupillo, on Wallace Records. Both releases have been strongly acclaimed by critics worldwide - to read some quotes, please go to the Press Clips page. In May 2006, "Paspanga", the debut CD of Lukas' new project Burkina Electric was released in Burkina Faso only; worldwide release will follow later. Burkina Electric, a collaboration with musicians and dancers from Burkina Faso, West Africa and German pop music pioneer Pyrolator, fuses the world of dance electronica with traditional rhythms and other musical elements from Burkina Faso as well as new musical concepts based on African musical traditions. Burkina Electric recently performed at the Jazz à Ouaga Festival in Burkina Faso. In September 2005, Lukas was a featured artist at the Unyazi Electronic Music Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa, the first festival for (experimental) electronic music ever in Africa. He performed a new solo repertoire using the Marimba Lumina, an electronic percussion instrument designed by American engineer Don Buchla. This has led to a return invitation to South Africa, as composer-in-residence at Wits University in Johannesburg in August 2006. In January 2006, Lukas' music was performed as part of the Focus on Africa festival at Columbia University in New York, and he spoke on a panel on contemporary music in Africa, as the only non-African participant. Recent festival performances as a drummer/improvisor include Jazz à Mulhouse (France), Klangspuren (Austria), Angelica Festival (Italy), Tampere Jazz Happening (Finland), SKIF and FSK Festivals (Russia), and the Rochester International Jazz Festival (U.S.). In New York and worldwide, he recently played with musicians such as John Zorn, Gary Lucas, Eugene Chadbourne, Raoul Björkenheim, and others. Meanwhile, his compositions have been performed by other ensembles at festivals such as Milano Musica (Italy), Beethovenfest Bonn (Germany), El-Bustan Festival (Lebanon), Styrian Autumn (Austria), Budapest Autumn Festival (Hungary), Zagreb Biennale (Croatia), Tampere Biennale (Finland), and many others. October 2005 saw the first broadcast (on ARTE, the French/German cable TV channel) of "La route de la peur", a fiction-documentary film for which Lukas composed the music, his second collaboration with French director Judit Kele after the very successful "Un homme de confiance", a documentary on the artist Jeff Koons produced in 2002. In May, 2006, he composed a sound collage, "Fear of Silence", for the website of "Armed Response", a conference on security at the Goethe Institute in Johannesburg, South Africa. Presently in the works are, among other projects, a piece for solo violin with electronics for New York violinist Todd Reynolds; a marimba solo composition commissioned by a consortium of American percussionists; and a duet for trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger and percussionist Colin Currie to be premiered in early 2007; a piece for the Bang On A Can All-Stars to be premiered in March 2007 at Merkin Hall in New York City; and a piece for the Tonkünstler symphony orchestra to be premiered in October 2007 in St. Pölten, Austria. Also, Lukas has been invited to curate Ohren auf Europa festival of European contemporary music of the Notabu Ensemble, a chamber orchestra from Düsseldorf, Germany, with four concerts in the spring of 2007, including a premiere of a new piece by Lukas written for that group. Download press kit |