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...was born in Vienna, Austria and studied composition and jazz drums at
the Vienna Music Academy. He was a visiting composer at the Center for
Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, Stanford University from 1994
until 1996 and is currently based in New York City...but is often on the
road.
Lukas Ligeti has received composition commissions from many ensembles and
institutions, for example the Vienna Konzerthaus, Ensemble Modern
(Germany), Kronos Quartet, Vienna Saxophone Quartet, Icebreaker (London),
and the Festival of New American Music (Sacramento). His music has also
been performed by the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National
de Lyon, London Sinfonietta, die reihe (Vienna), San Francisco Contemporary
Music Players, London Composers' Ensemble, Amadinda Percussion Ensemble
(Budapest), and Synergy Percussion (Sydney). Festivals at which his music
has been heard include Hörgänge and Wien Modern (Vienna), Steirischer
Herbst (Graz), Festival d'Automne à Paris, Bath Festival, Meltdown
(London), 38ème Rugissants (Grenoble), Budapest Weeks of Contemporary
Music, Bartók Festival (Szombathely, Hungary), Time of Music (Viitasaari,
Finland), Musica e Scienzia (Rome), Taipei International Percussion
Festival, Other Minds (San Francisco), the Zimbabwe International Book Fair
(Harare), and many others.
Highly active as a drummer playing improvised music, he has performed
and/or recorded with, among others, Henry Kaiser, Elliott Sharp, Michael
Manring, Pamela Z, Mari Kimura, Pyrolator Kurt Dahlke, Steve Adams, George
Lewis, Mark Dresser, Anthony Coleman, Roy Nathanson, and ex-Grateful Dead
keyboarder Tom Constanten. 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.
In 1994, commissioned by the Goethe Institute, he led a cultural exchange
workshop with African traditional musicians in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. This
led to founding the group Beta Foly and several more trips to Abidjan. Beta
Foly debuted in Europe at the Wien Modern Festival in 1996 and recently
performed at the opening fesival of the Goethe Institute's new concert hall
in Munich. The first CD of Lukas Ligeti & Beta Foly, recorded in 1996 in
Abidjan, was recently released on Intuition Records.
Lukas is also increasingly active as a solo performer on electronic
percussion, having appeared at various festivals. He recently completed a
tour of Zimbabwe and South Africa, giving solo performances and other
concerts as part of a cultural exchange program involving Simonga, a group
performing "Ngoma Buntibe", a traditional music of the Valley Tonga people
of the Lake Kariba area in Zimbabwe.
Lukas' main interests include the development of new ways of interaction
between musicians in an ensemble, in contexts ranging from free-improvised
to through-composed. As a drummer as well as a composer, he works with
complex polymetric structures, which have led to new forms of notation
(tabulature for drum-set) and rhythmic coordination (for example by using
cues heard by musicians via headphones). New developments in computer
technology are a strong influence on, and are often used in, his works.
Musically, he is influenced by many styles of traditional music from around
the world, by jazz, pop, and current
electronic/experimental musical tendencies, among many other things. He
enjoys collaborating in exchange projects with artists from diverse
cultural backgrounds in the hope of coming up with styles that are not an
imitation of the language of one participant of the exchange, but rather a
new synthesis possible only through the combination of said backgrounds.
Lukas hopes to develop musical languages that give food for thought, that
make possible new means of expression, thus enabling innovative artists to
play a more active role in the discourse shaping our (hopefully) free,
democratic society.
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NOWNOWISM(Things of NowNow, Extraplatte, 1991)
HYBRID BEAT (Kombinat M, Cuneiform Records, 1993)
THE SIAMESE STEPBROTHERS(B. Anderson/T. Constanten/H. Kaiser/L. Ligeti/D.
Sophiea, Cuneiform Records, 1995)
Bane of Black Ink, on STATE OF THE UNION (Atavistic Records, 1996)
The Chinese Wall, on CECH/LIGETI/SCHLEE (Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra,
ORF Edition Zeitton, 1996)
Frozen State of Song on REICH/BRYARS/LIGETI/CARL (Vienna Saxophone Quartet,
Lotus Records, 1997)
LUKAS LIGETI & BETA FOLY (Intuition Records, 1997)
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