The composer and drummer/electronic percussionist/improvisor Lukas Ligeti has forged a fiercely independent path at the cutting edge of new music, creating strikingly original work cognisant of a multitude of traditions yet belonging to none of contemporary music’s known streams or groupings. At the intersection of contemporary composition, Downtown New York experimentalism, jazz and electronics, his work builds strongly on concepts from various music traditions from around the world, especially from Africa. Often characterised by complex polymetric structures, his music ranges from the through-composed to the free-improvised. He is deeply engaged in the field of “experimental intercultural collaboration”, a phrase he has coined.

Born in Austria, he lived mainly in New York City from 1998 until 2015 and subsequently in Southern California, where he served as faculty member of the PhD program “Integrated Composition, Improvisation and Technology” at the University of California, Irvine. He is currently an Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria and divides his time between Miami and Johannesburg.

WildKat is working with Lukas Ligeti on International PR from 2023.