Tune in to Afternoon New Music on Monday, August 8 for an interview with composer and percussionist Lukas Ligeti. This interview is in anticipation of an upcoming survey concert that will highlight his acoustic compositions from 1988 to 2016 and the lasting influence of the Bauhaus movement on the artist’s creative process. The concert is scheduled to take place at National Sawdust, Brooklyn on August 14. Interview topics will include the concert as well as the influence of architecture, visual art and speech rhythms in Ligeti's compositions and more. We will also feature rare, unreleased recordings of Ligeti's music. Listen!
Ligeti has established a large body of compositions often combining influences of jazz, contemporary classical, electronic, and world music. His work has been performed by a variety of premier ensembles, such as the London Sinfonietta, the Ensemble Modern, Kronos Quartet, and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. He will be in our studio to talk about his music and thoughts. The Austrian composer-percussionist Lukas Ligeti has developed a musical style of his own that draws upon downtown New York experimentalism, contemporary classical music, jazz, electronica, as well as world music, particularly from Africa. Known for his non-conformity and diverse interests, Lukas creates music ranging from the through-composed to the free-improvised, often exploring polyrhythmic/polytempo structures, non-tempered tunings, and non-western elements. Other major sources of inspiration include experimental mathematics, computer technology, architecture and visual art, sociology and politics, and travel. He has also been participating in cultural exchange projects in Africa for the past 15 years. Born in Vienna, Austria into a family from which several important artists have come including his father, composer György Ligeti, Lukas started his musical adventures after finishing high school. He studied composition and percussion at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and then moved to the U.S. and spent two years at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University before settling in New York in 1998. His commissions include Bang on a Can, the Vienna Festwochen, Ensemble Modern, Kronos Quartet, Colin Currie and Håkan Hardenberger, the American Composers Forum, New York University, ORF Austrian Broadcasting Company, Radio France, and more; he also regularly collaborates with choreographer Karole Armitage. As a drummer, he co-leads several bands and has performed and/or recorded with John Zorn, Henry Kaiser, Raoul Björkenheim, Gary Lucas, Michael Manring, Marilyn Crispell, Benoit Delbecq, Jim O’Rourke, Daniel Carter, John Tchicai, Eugene Chadbourne, and many others. He performs frequently on electronic percussion often using the marimba lumina, a rare instrument invented by California engineer Don Buchla.
