Lukas Ligeti
Biography
Lukas Ligeti is an Austrian-American composer and improviser whose work combines influences from a wide range of musical languages, including the European avant-garde, African traditions, jazz, and the spirit of the New York experimental music scene. His creative experiments have led to innovations in ensemble interaction and polymetric and polytempo structures; many of his works are rooted in his intensive study of African music. A drummer active in jazz and free improvisation, Lukas Ligeti has also worked with live electronics and is the initiator of numerous intercultural projects.
He has received composition commissions from Ars Musica/Brussels Philharmonic, MDR Symphony Orchestra Leipzig, American Composers Orchestra, Tonkünstler Orchestra Niederösterreich, Prague State Opera, Vienna Festwochen, Bang On A Can, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Ensemble Modern, Moers Festival, Eighth Blackbird, Kronos Quartet, Ligeti Quartet, Aris-Quartett, Radio France, Ensemble Hopper, Ensemble Reconsil, Network for New Music, Håkan Hardenberger, Colin Currie, Nicolas Namoradze, and many others. His music has also been performed by the Orchestre National de Lyon, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, Basel Sinfonietta, Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra, Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Quartetto Prometeo, Amadinda Percussion Group, etc.
As an improvising drummer he has worked with John Zorn, Elliott Sharp, Gary Lucas, Henry Kaiser, John Tchicai, Raoul Björkenheim, Marilyn Crispell, Eyal Maoz, James Ilgenfritz, Rupert Huber, Jonathan Crossley, David Kollar, Michael Manring, John Oswald, Pyrolator, and Wadada Leo Smith, among others; he gives solo concerts worldwide on the marimba lumina, an electronic percussion instrument designed by engineer Don Buchla.
He has been an artist-in -esidence at, among others, the Emily Harvey Foundation in Venice, Acéfalo Festival in Valparaíso, Sonoscopia in Porto and the POLIN Museum for the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw; the work That Which Has Remained... That Which Will Emerge..., created there, was released on CD by col legno in 2021 and described by the British critic Norman Lebrecht as "the most significant of its kind since Steve Reich's Different Trains".
Since his first trip to Africa, in 1994 to Côte d'Ivoire on behalf of the Goethe-Institut, he has worked regularly in various regions of that continent, leading to a novel approach to transcultural collaboration, experimental intercultural collaboration. With colleagues from West Africa, he founded the ensembles Beta Foly (Côte d'Ivoire, 1994-99) and Burkina Electric (Burkina Faso, since 2004); he has also worked in Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Uganda and Zimbabwe, among others.
In 2023, he was artistic director of the International Society for Contemporary Music’s World New Music Days in South Africa, the festival’s centenary edition and the first time it was held in Africa.
Lukas Ligeti studied composition with Erich Urbanner and jazz drums with Fritz Ozmec at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna (Austria) and earned a PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (South Africa). He has also studied with John Zorn, George Crumb, and Jonathan Harvey, among others. After living for many years in New York, he was a professor in the PhD program in Integrated Composition, Improvisation and Technology at the University of California, Irvine until 2021. He was then an extraordinary professor at the University of Pretoria before joining the Royal Conservatory of Brussels as Professor of Composition in 2024. He has received numerous awards and grants, including the CalArts Alpert Award in Music (2010).