Lukas Ligeti
LUKAS LIGETI is a composer and improvisor (on drums and electronic percussion) whose work is informed by a unique approach to rhythm and a special interest in intercultural collaboration. From 2015-2021, he was a faculty member at UC Irvine and core faculty in the ICIT program. He is currently an Extraordinary Professor (Distinguished Visiting Professor) at the University of Pretoria.
His compositions have been commissioned by Bang on a Can, Eighth Blackbird, the Kronos Quartet, Ensemble Modern, the American Composers Orchestra, the Vienna Festival, Goethe Institute, Armitage Gone! Dance, and many others. As a drummer, he has worked with John Zorn, Marilyn Crispell, Gary Lucas, John Tchicai, Henry Kaiser, Miya Masaoka, Michael Manring, Tarek Atoui, Thollem McDonas, etc., and co-leads the trio Hypercolor with Eyal Maoz and James Ilgenfritz. He has given solo concerts on five continents, performing on the Marimba Lumina, a MIDI controller designed by Don Buchla. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw and at the Sonoscopia experimental music association Porto, Portugal, among others. Active in experimental collaboration in Africa for more than 25 years, he co-founded the ensemble Beta Foly in Côte d’Ivoire and co-leads Burkina Electric, the first electronica band from Burkina Faso, and has also worked in Egypt, Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, etc.
Lukas studied composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria, his city of birth. He was a visiting scholar at Stanford University and subsequently lived in New York City from 1998 until 2015. He holds a PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he was previously composer-in-residence, and has also taught at the University of Ghana. Among other prizes, he received, in 2010, the CalArts Alpert Award in Music. www.lukasligeti.com.