Lukas Ligeti
Lukas Ligeti
13 June 2008
MAVERICK COMPOSER-PERCUSSIONIST LUKAS LIGETI IS ESTABLISHING HIMSELF AS A MUSICAL INNOVATOR. MARK LANGSHAW CAUGHT UP WITH HIM
Try as they might, nobody defies categorisation like Lukas
Ligeti. His music is an original fusion of acoustic, avant-garde,
jazz, electronic and traditional African melodies, as unique as it
is daring. Born in Austria into an artistic family, his musical
journey began after he graduated from high school and decided to
follow in the footsteps of his father, György Ligeti, the
Hungarian composer best known for his scores for Stanley Kubrick
classics 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining.
'If it hadn't been for my father, I don't think I would
have even had the idea it was possible to become a composer. But
it's very hard to say because I've never been anybody else;
I've never had another father,' says Ligeti.
Although he does not downplay his father's creative influence,
his area of artistic interest soon extended further: 'My father
was not a collaborator; he liked to compose alone. I also like to
compose alone, but my passion is collaboration. My father was about
structure; he was interested in jazz, but mainly structured jazz,
whereas my interest lies in improvisation.'
'I just wasn't that interested in being an interpreter and had no desire to learn other people's music'
It was his penchant for improvised music that drove Ligeti to
pursue jazz drumming at the age of 21 at the University of Music
and Performing Arts, Vienna, defecting from classical percussion.
'I soon realised classical percussion was not for me,' he
says. 'I just wasn't that interested in being an
interpreter and had no desire to learn other people's music.
'The Austrian music scene was, and still is dominated by
aesthetic tendencies that are not really mine, so I always felt
more at home playing the US and England.' And it was from
England that he received his first commission, which was premiered
by the London Symphony Orchestra. Following this, his passion for
jazz led him to downtown New York, home to many of his inspirations
including Charles Ives, John Cage and Henry Cowell.
'Jazz is an incredible influence on me because I find it to be
the strongest example of a living musical language that has
developed over the past hundred years or so. I love the idea of
music as a language and having a concrete meaning within a certain
context. That's not to say I'm against the abstract, but a
piece can be more poignant in context.'
