Lukas Ligeti

Lukas Ligeti (born 13 June 1965, in Vienna, Austria) is an Austrian-American composer and percussionist.[1] His work incorporates elements of jazz, contemporary classical and various world musics, especially African traditional and popular music styles.[2]

Biography

Ligeti is of Hungarian ancestry and is the son of the noted composer György Ligeti (1923–2006). He holds a master's degree from the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, where he studied composition with Erich Urbanner and jazz drums, and a PhD from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Ligeti has done numerous cross-cultural collaborations and exchanges with non-Western musicians, experimenting with both ancient African traditional instruments and modern music technology.[3]

He travels frequently to Africa and has performed with musicians from Côte d'Ivoire (where he founded the experimental intercultural group Beta Foly), Egypt (with musicians from Nubia and the Orchestra of the Cairo Opera House), Zimbabwe (with Batonka musicians),Uganda (with Ndere Troupe), Kenya, South Africa, Lesotho (with lesiba performers), Mozambique and several other African nations.

His group, Burkina Electric, based in Burkina Faso, brings together electronica and Burkinabe popular music.[4]

From 1994 to 1996 he was visiting composer at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University.

In 2006 he was visiting professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. In 2008 he was a guest professor at the University of Ghana, where he collaborated with composer and musicologist J.H. Kwabena Nketia.

He currently resides in Southern California and is on faculty at the Department of Music at the University of California, Irvine,[5] where he teaches in the PhD program in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology (ICIT).[6]

Works

Ligeti creates music ranging from the through-composed to the free-improvised, often exploring polyrhythmic/polytempo structures, non-tempered tunings, and non-Western elements.[7][8]

Compositions have been commissioned and/or performed at concerts and festival worldwide by the London Sinfonietta, the Amadinda Ensemble Budapest, Icebreaker, the London Composers' Ensemble, the Synergy Percussion Sydney, the Ensemble Modern, Kronos Quartet, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bang on a Can, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Orchestre National de Lyon, Eighth Blackbird, American Composers Orchestra, MDR Orchestra Germany, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Håkan Hardenberger, Colin Currie, New York University, Subtropics Festival/Historical Museum of Southern Florida, Vienna Festwochen, Radio France, Tonkünstler Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic´s Ensemble 10/10, Present Music, Ensemble Mise-En, Contemporaneous, Ensemble “die reihe”, Third Coast, Kroumata Percussion Groups, and a consortium that includes marimbists such as Eric Beach (So Percussion) and Ji Hye Jung, among others.

He has also composed for dance, film and gallery settings. He has collaborated with choreographers such as Karole Armitage[9] and Panaibra Gabriel Canda,[10] among others.

He has composed music for the European channel ARTE TV, and created a sound installation for Goethe Institut on the occasion of the FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil.

He has collaborated with Lebanese sound artist Tarek Atoui,[11] and has been resident artist at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, where he created a site-specific performance.[12]

As an improvisor, he has played with John Zorn, Henry Kaiser, Kurt Dahlke (aka Pyrolator), Raoul Björkenheim, Elliott Sharp, John Tchicai, Ned Rothenberg, David Rothenberg, Marilyn Crispell, Michael Manring, Benoît Delbecq, Gianni Gebbia, Mari Kimura, George Lewis, Gary Lucas, Wadada Leo Smith, DJ Spooky, Thollem McDonas, Jon Rose, Jim O´Rourke, members of Sonic Youth and The Grateful Dead, and many others.[13]

He leads or co-leads bands such as Hypercolor (with Eyal Maoz and James Ilgenfritz),[14] Notebook and Burkina Electric.  

He frequently performs solo on electronic percussion, especially with the Marimba Lumina, an instrument designed  by renowned synthesizer engineers Don Buchla. He is one of the very few musicians performing on this intrument.[15]

CDs of his music have been released by Tzadik, Cantaloupe, Intuition, Innova, Leo, among other record labels, and he is endorsed by the drum sticks brand Vic Firth.

Recognitions and Awards

Ligeti was recipient of the CalArts Herb Alpert Arts Award in the Music category in 2010.[16]

Ligeti is a two-time recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Composition Fellowship (2002, 2008),[17] of the Austrian State Grant for Composition (1991, 1996), and was awarded the “Förderungspreis” of the City of Vienna in 1990, a 1993 award of the Republic of Austria and composition fellowships and grants by the Arts Council of Santa Clara County/California and the Austrian state.

In 2013 and 2015–19, he has been listed as a “Rising Star” percussionist in the Critics’ Poll of the leading jazz magazine DownBeat; he was also the winner of the NYC-based “UnCaged Toy Piano” composition competition in 2013.

Residencies have included Villa Montalvo (Saratoga, CA), the Emily Harvey Foundation (Venice, Italy), Acéfalo Festival (Santiago, Chile) and Sonoscopia (Porto, Portugal).

Discography (selected)
  • 1991 - Things Of Now Now – Nownowism
  • 1993 - Kombinat M – Hybrid Beat
  • 1997 - Lukas Ligeti & Beta Foly – Lukas Ligeti & Beta Foly
  • 2003 - Raoul Björkenheim & Lukas Ligeti – Shadowglow
  • 2004 - Lukas Ligeti – Mystery System
  • 2008 - Lukas Ligeti – Afrikan Machinery
  • 2010 - Burkina Electric – Paspanga
  • 2011 - Lukas Ligeti, Benoît Delbecq, Gianni Gebbia, Aly Keita & Michael Manring – Pattern Time
  • 2014 - Lukas Ligeti & Thollem McDonas – Imaginary Images
  • 2015 - Hypercolor – Hypercolor

References
  1. Books, L. L. C. (September 2010). Austrian Drummers: Christian Eigner, Lukas Ligeti, Thomas Lang, Manfred Hausleitner. General Books LLC. ISBN 978-1-158-33748-4.
  2. Times, The New York (2009-03-02). "Music in Review (Published 2009)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-12-03.
  3. Ligeti, Lukas (2003). "On My Collaborations with Non-Western Musicians and the Influence of Technology in These Exchanges". The World of Music. 45 (2): 137–141. ISSN 0043-8774. JSTOR 41700067.
  4. Bräuninger, Jürgen (2006). "Introduction: UNYAZI". Leonardo Music Journal. 16: 62–63. doi:10.1162/lmj.2006.16.62. ISSN 0961-1215. JSTOR 4540602. S2CID 57563218.
  5. "Lukas Ligeti | Department of Music | Claire Trevor School of the Arts". music.arts.uci.edu. Retrieved 2020-12-03.
  6. "Lukas Ligeti | ICIT". Retrieved 2020-12-03.
  7. Ligeti, Lukas (2016). Polymeters, Body, and Mind: One Musician’s Creative Experiments with (Dis)embodied Rhythm. In Proceedings of A Body of Knowledge - Embodied Cognition and the Arts conference. CTSA UCI 8-10 Dec 2016. Retrieved December 3, 2020
  8. Netshivhambe, Evans Ntshengedzen (2007). Lukas Ligeti as a Unique Elecroacoustic Composer-performer: With specific reference to the instrument ‘Marimba Lumina’. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
  9. "Karole Armitage by Lukas Ligeti - BOMB Magazine". bombmagazine.org. Retrieved 2020-12-03.
  10. Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. MAPP International Productions 2014 Report. Retrieved December 3, 2020
  11. "Visiting Tarab". Uriel Barthélémi (in French). 2013-05-29. Retrieved 2020-12-03.
  12. "Lukas Ligeti, 9-29 November, 2015 | Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN w Warszawie". www.polin.pl. Retrieved 2020-12-03.
  13. "Composer, Performer, Improvisor | The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts". herbalpertawards.org. 2013-10-16. Retrieved 2020-12-03.
  14. Schweitzer, Vivien (2015-04-02). "Review: Lukas Ligeti's Disparate Interests, on Display at the Stone (Published 2015)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-12-03.
  15. Lubow, Arthur (2012). "Cross-Fertilization". The Threepenny Review (128): 26–27. ISSN 0275-1410. JSTOR 41550156.
  16. "Lukas Ligeti | The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts". herbalpertawards.org. 2013-03-23. Retrieved 2020-12-03.
  17. "The NYFA Collection | Innova Recordings". www.innova.mu. Retrieved 2020-12-03.
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