Lukas Ligeti

My short concert series, Benefit of Clergy, is currently running Wednesday nights at Café Orwell in Bushwick, Brooklyn. It’s a very friendly cafe with good sandwiches, and the music has been a blast: Jonah Rosenberg, Blaise Siwula, the No Net Trio, Jack Wright, Evan Lipson, David Linton, Claire Barratt, Lex Samu, and Tom Zlabinger have already come through. The next 3 Wednesdays will feature:
11/30: James Ilgenfritz/Damon Holzborn and Andy Akiho/Lisa Dowling/LL
12/7: Jeff Shurdut/Gene Janas/Brian Osborne and Terrence McManus/LL
12/14: Hypercolor – Eyal Maoz/James Ilgenfritz/LL
In addition, on Dec. 9th, my newly-formed band, Notebook, will perform at the 1st Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn Heights. If you’re in NYC, please come on by!

At very short notice, I find myself in Beirut, Lebanon to do research for “Visiting Tarab”, a project curated by Tarek Atoui with concerts in November in NYC at the Performa Festival and next March in Sharjah, UAE. It’s my first time to Lebanon, and my first time to the Middle East since doing a project with musicians in Cairo way back in 1999. Beirut is beautiful, a strange mixture of extremely relaxed and tense: definitely worth seeing…and my hosts here, Tarek, Kamal Kassar, and the Irtijal association led by Sharif Sehnaoui, are a joy to spend time with. Aside from listening to tarab music at Kamal’s extensive archive, I played a most enjoyable concert the day before yesterday with Tarek and Sherif, 6 other great improvisors from Lebanon (Mazen Kerbaj, Charbel Haber, Tony Elieh, Cynthia Zaven, Raed Yassin, and Omar Dewachi – actually from Iraq), Uriel Barthélémi from France, and Lichens and DJ Spooky from NYC. Tonight, a trio with Elliott Sharp and Tarek at the Freikeh Silk Factory!

I’m currently on a short tour of the southeastern U.S., playing solo concerts on the marimba lumina. I’ve already played in Louisville and St. Louis, which included many interesting discoveries such as St. Louis percussionist Rich O’Donnell (who hosted my show) and his seesaw drumming technique, a totally original and innovative concept. Today (May 1st) I play in New Orleans; then I continue to Tuscaloosa, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill. I’m especially excited about the show in Tuscaloosa, which is NOT canceled, despite the recent catastrophic tornado. Playing a concert (I will play solo and with Andrew Raffo Dewar) under such unusual circumstances is both highly emotional and highly gratifying. Please check the upcoming concerts page for details…I hope to see you out there!

In the next few days, several of my compositions will be played by some more-than-cool musicians. I’m in Montréal at the moment…a really lovely place. A few days ago, I had the pleasure of playing a concert with Jean Derome and Vergil Sharkya, which was most enjoyable, and tonight I will play with the Sixtrum percussion ensemble, doing some joint improvisations after they play several of my percussion ensemble pieces. They’re a fantastic group! Then, on Thursday, the unbelievable duo of Håkan Hardenberger (trumpet) and Colin Currie (percussion) will premiere my piece “Tangle”, written for them; the concert will take place in Hannover and will be repeated a few days later in Seoul. Alas, I won’t be able to attend these events, but I will be at Symphony Space in NYC on April 22nd, when the Iktus Percussion Quartet plays my “Pattern Transformation”. If you’re in any of these places, please come on by!

On April 1 and 2, I will perform at two different and excellent festivals in Downtown Manhattan: The Disklavier Festival at the White Box in Chinatown and the Music with a View Festival at the Flea Theater in Tribeca. On the 1st, I’ll premiere “The Same But Not The Same”, a new piece for computerized piano and drum set, and on the 2nd, I will play solo on the marimba lumina. Please see the upcoming concerts page for more info. Thanks to the curators, Elliott Sharp and Kathleen Supové, for inviting me!

At the moment, I’m in one of my favorite cities: Johannesburg. And in the next few days, I have two appearances in the area of the Arts on Main development, a beautiful emerging “arts district” in the urban jungle of Jo’burg’s downtown: on March 13th, a noon DJ set at Arts on Main, and on the 15th, a concert of improvised music with some great local colleagues at the development’s new branch, Main Street Life. Please see the Upcoming Concerts page for details. Hope to see you there…it’s summer here!