Lukas Ligeti
Lukas Ligeti’s (1965) compositions draw on diverse traditions including New York experimentalism, electronic music, jazz, African influences, and the European avant-garde. His music shows an interest in musical processes, complex polymetric structures and intercultural collaboration, with many of his works arising out of his deep, long-term engagement with the music of Africa. An established percussionist, especially in the fields of jazz and free improvisation, Lukas Ligeti has long worked with live electronics and has initiated numerous intercultural musical projects, such as his European-African electronica group Burkina Electric. He is currently composing works for the Aris String Quartet, the Ligeti Quartet, for headphone orchestra, Burkina Electric + Ensemble BRuCH and the pianist Nicolas Namoradze. These commissioned works and numerous existing compositions will receive world premieres, first performances and revivals this year in Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania, Great Britain, Canada, Belgium, Japan, Italy, South Africa, the USA, and Switzerland. In 2023 Lukas Ligeti will be co-curator of the Oluzayo Festival (as part of the European Conference on African Studies – African Futures Cologne) and Artistic Director of the World Music Days in Johannesburg on the occasion of 100 years of the International Society for New Music. Lukas Ligeti studied composition and percussion at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where his tutors included Erich Urbanner, Kurt Schwertsik, George Crumb, Jonathan Harvey, and John Zorn, among others. He currently divides his time between Miami and South Africa, where he received his PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg) in 2020 and holds an honorary professorship at the University of Pretoria.
